


Ashes to Ashes (dust to dust)

by creativefuckerzspring



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Feels, Harley Keener is a troll, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Infinity War spoilers, M/M, One-Sided Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sleepy Tony, Slow Burn, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Tony is sleepy a lot, brief description of panic attacks, dreaming Tony, mentions of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-05-04 01:30:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14581968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creativefuckerzspring/pseuds/creativefuckerzspring
Summary: It has been six months since the world has been restored to its original state - or as much as it can be with half the world in shock of having died and the other half that the dead have returned and are still in the trauma of having lost them.Tony Stark just wants to meet the man and know he is safe- the man who made the world be whole again a possibility.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The title of the fic comes from this thing I found on the web: "The 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer indicated the manner and text of the burial service:
> 
> The earth shall be cast upon the lifeless Body by the people standing by."
> 
> I am neither Christian nor religious but this kinda seemed apt for the whole thing.

Tony has been given again and again another shot to live- from the time he was first kidnapped, or, from that cave in Afghanistan, from the Palladium poisoning, when Obadiah pulled it out of his chest, when he flew out into the space with the missile, when he almost got trapped and drowned trying to hold his house up, when Steve had brought the shield down on his chest and perhaps many more. Tony has been given several shots at life. He seems to be always given another chance. Tony doesn’t understand. Not till there are only ashes around him. Not till he is covered in dust and he remembers that he is the one burdened with the cursed knowledge. Like Thanos had said he would be the only one who would be able to do anything about it. Like Strange had said fourteen million possibilities. Till then Tony had been unsure of his purpose, of life’s ulterior motive- making him continue to live while people he cared about, people he had wanted to live longer lives hadn’t. As he had inhaled the ash and almost choked on it, he finally knew what he had to. So, he had grabbed the hand of an equally, if not more, broken soul and had stood determined to make this yet another shot at life be that damn possibility of them winning this war.

 

And like everything else that Tony Stark had set his mind to, he comes out on the winning side. It takes a while but he does. He doesn’t stop even when his lungs are sputtering to provide him with air, even when his muscles pull and make him stumble. He doesn’t stop even in moments when his armour fails him because a Tony Stark who has already lost everything is unstoppable. He becomes a force that even Thanos comes to acknowledge and when the final blow is struck, he sees understanding, pain in those eyes.

 

Even when he is falling, Thanos continues to be the reflection of the invisible burden on shoulders.

 

“I wish it didn’t have to come to this, my friend. I understand you.” 

Tony had spat on the ground, shaking. “You don’t.”

“If I were in your place, I would do the same too.” Thanos smiles as he falls to the ground and pulls Tony with him. Tony continues to shiver and shake from adrenaline and shock and sleeplessness. Thanos pets his head and it is fucking same all over again. Tony screws his eyes shut and tries to breathe hard and block out the memories of dust and anguish.

 

 

_I don’t feel so good, Mr Stark._

 

 

“This planet is blessed to have you.” Thanos wipes a treacherous tear away from his face. “I hope this world remembers you, my child.”

 

Then, it is only Tony sitting on the ground and even more pile of ash in front of him, on him again. He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, doubles over and bawls. His chest wracking with sobs in the absolute silence of nature.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

When he had been on that doughnut of a ship, bantering with Strange, it had been an effort to find some kind of comfort in the familiar verbal dance of the Tony Stark to keep himself from panicking but mutual respect and imminent danger had cut that short. When Strange had said he would pick the universe over him and Parker he had been relieved because it aligned with his own thoughts. He wouldn’t have had to fight with him on it and if Strange was determined about something, one could be assured to be in good hands and in this case, it had been the universe. Tony had not known how Strange had come to be the “Sorcerer Supreme” but he had been _relieved_ . Tony could trust Stephen Strange to do his job. But like everything else in his life, this relief of his had lasted too short. He should have known. He should have _known_ .

 

Stephen Strange then did something that Tony would have never expected from anyone in his life. Not anymore.

 

Doctor Stephen Strange gave up his life for Anthony Stark.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Legends never die, they become a part of you  
> Every time you bleed for reaching greatness  
> Relentless you survive"
> 
> \- **Legends Never Die** I **Against the Current**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the kudos and comments! :D

Tony refills his glass and puts the whisky bottle next to him. He is sitting on one of the several terraces of the Compound. His armour is at a standby mode behind him. He sips the bitter liquid and tries not to spit it out. Once the dust had settled and life had been restored to the universe, Tony had taken to alcohol again like a thirsty man to water. He had watched Rhodey and Pepper look at him with undisguised pity and worry but they never told him not to. It would have been impossible for them to get him to stop. Not until one day his inebriation had cost him Peter Parker the son he never had because he couldn’t save him in time. Because he couldn’t reach Queens in time. Just because he had been drinking himself to an unlikely death and having a pity party all by himself. He had watched in horror on his phone after Friday overrode protocols and started playing the local news channel’s live coverage and saw Spiderman swinging into a building going up in flames. He had watched in shock as that building then had burst and his phone had slipped from his hand and had clattered to the floor. Tony had tried to get up from the floor but he had promptly fallen on his back. When he had come around, he had been in a hospital ward, getting treated for alcohol poisoning.

 

Tony scoffs as he finishes his second glass. It had been five months since his hospitalisation and break from spirits.

 

 

It has been six months since the world had been restored and he is yet to meet the man who told him about that possibility. Tony still wonders why Strange had exchanged the Time infinity stone for his life. He had first been swarmed in guilt because the universe was doomed because he let himself be compromised but as more and more days had gone by, he often pondered if Strange had not exchanged it to save his life. Maybe, just maybe, he had seen Tony being the enabler of saving the universe struggle. That maybe he had been needed for that One Possibility to come to pass but that needed a sheer amount of trust on Strange’s part. Tony on most days didn’t trust himself then why had Stephen Strange?

 

 

_Tony Stark, we need your help_

 

 

The baritone voice had said he had stepped out through a sparkling portal and Tony had been stunned to see the man again and as a ‘Master of Mystic Arts’ had been an understatement. He would like to know exactly what had been going through that doctor’s mind when he had given up his Eye of Agamotto. Tony has spent the last six months trying to trace that man but to no avail. He had gone to the Sanctorum in New York itself but it had been deserted. Even with the present day’s technology and Tony’s will, he couldn’t find the man. As if he had never existed. Everyone had come back, except for the man who had shown faith in him when Tony’s own had been failing. When Wong had turned up at his wedding, he had been surprised. The former had congratulated but Tony had just one thing to ask,

“Where is Stephen?”

“I am sorry.”

 

Wong had looked regrettable, had given Pepper the flower bouquet and had left.

 

 

Tony chucks the glass and pushes the bottle away. He is supposed to be alone in the compound. Nobody would get hurt. He fishes his mobile out and checks his Inbox.

 

**Las Vegas looks fun. Will be back next week.**

 

 

Nebula won’t be returning for a while then. Great. He is truly alone then. Even if he doesn’t count FRIDAY or Butterfingers or U. One good thing that has come out from the clusterfuck of a situation is his and Nebula’s friendship. Tony doesn’t want to jinx it but for Thanos’s daughter or an alien being, she is very reliable. Hell, she is even more trustworthy than most human beings Tony has met in his life. He cherishes their friendship. She is never hesitant to speak what is on her mind.

 

Tony chuckles recalling that moment he can never forget now. It had been four months since life in universe had got halved, since he had lost his child Vision. (Tony balls his right hand to fist and tries to not think about the dead, vacant body in which once intelligence and philosophy harboured. Tony had almost gone into a cardiac arrest when Rhodey had slowly laid his son at his feet.) Tony had been standing at the altar as the most beautiful woman of his life had walked down towards him. Anthony Stark hadn’t deserved Virginia Pepper Potts. She had been looking stunning in the white gown with the huge trail, her armed tucked around James Rhodes’s elbow. They had been looking to restore some normalcy to their lives and to everyone who was watching. Tony had been wearing a bespoke suit with boutonniere attached to it. He had smiled widely because he had been genuinely blessed to have her in his utter miserable life. He had taken her dainty hands and had exchanged vows but he knew both their vows were just words and nothing else. He hadn’t even registered what they had been. His forehead had sweat dripping down and he had kept trying to sneak glances towards the audience, towards the Exit. Then, Nebula had appeared just as he had been about to slip the ring onto Pepper’s finger. He had stopped, unable to slide it on the skin, staring at his fiancee’s face with wide eyes and holding her hand in an unforgivable grip. Pepper had sighed,

 

“Go.”

 

His grip had only infinitesimally grown tighter. He couldn’t let her go. He didn’t want to leave her on the altar in front of the entire world but, Pepper, the wonderful, strong Pepper Potts had pulled her hand back and the audience had gasped. Tony had watched her in stunned silence as she had grabbed the mic nearest to her and has announced,

“The show is over. You all can leave now.”

“Pepper…” Tony had watched her with equal parts of gratefulness and horror.

 

“Go, Tony Stark. Go save the world.”

 

Pepper had smiled at him, the first genuine and heartfelt one in a really long time and Tony had stridden towards her and had kissed her on the forehead before he had jumped off the platform and had dashed through the confused crowd as he had kept ditching layer after layer of his bespoke suit for his wedding. He had been wearing his underarmor, his storehouse for nanobots in his chest, his actual suit’s band on his wrist and sneakers on his feet. As he had pressed the switch on his wrist and the Bleeding Edge armour had covered his skin, he had scooped Nebula up and they had shot up to the sky, he had earned the trust of another being. She had, Nebula had confessed later, much later, thought he wouldn’t leave, not leave a moment so dear to him for the sake of saving the universe but Tony had all but dropped it on a moment’s notice and had left with her. Tony, she had said later, earned her trust and respect that day. He had lost Pepper as his fiancee and at any chance of settling down with her but he had found a person who trusted him. Maybe Strange had too but he doesn’t know for sure. Maybe it had more to do with his trust in his own visions than Tony’s credibility.

 

 

_Only you have the will to do what the world needs, son. ___

__

Even after he is gone, Thanos’s words resound in his head. 

__

__

_I hope the world knows the sacrifices you made for it_

__

__

It leaves him with chills. 

__

_I hope the world remembers you_

__

__

__Tony rakes a hand through his hair and almost teeters off the edge and he welcomes the rush of air against his face._ _

__

__“Tony!” The one voice he hadn’t expected to hear shouts._ _

__

__His freefall from one of the tallest roofs of the Avengers Compound is cut short as a hand shoots out and grabs him by the elbow and pulls him back up. As Tony stumbles and the bottle gets kicked as he is manhandled into a hug, Tony can only gape as his face is pressed against the strong, warm chest of Steve Rogers._ _

__

__“I thought I was going to lose you again.” Steve chides but he even sounds fond and sad. He sounds so sad and Tony’s breath hitches._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you think it was Stephen? Nah. He'll take a while to get back. Hehehe. 
> 
>  
> 
> [PS: Bleeding Edge Armour is such a turn on if you get my drift]


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They're written down in eternity  
> But you'll never see the price it costs  
> The scars collected all their lives"
> 
>  
> 
> **Legends Never Die I Against the Current**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In any other media, Stony might make sense but in MCU? Stucky, man.

Tony breathes in the scent - the familiar and the old scent and buries into the solid chest before he jerks back and pushes the man away roughly.

“Tony-”

“What the fuck are you doing here!” 

Steve only gives him trademark hurt puppy look. “I can’t be?” Tony stumbles a couple of steps back and rubs at his face. “You didn’t tell FRIDAY to not let me in.”

“And why would I do that?”

“You have no reason otherwise.” Steve sweeps a hand in the air in a vague gesture like it is supposed to encompass and explain everything that had transpired between them. 

“And yet another point added to Things Cap Doesn’t Know About Tony Stark.” Tony snorts. “Do you even know anything about me, Capsicle? Other than those convoluted ideas you got about me.”

“Tony-” Steve begins again and takes a step closer.

“No.” Tony glares, “things haven’t been forgotten just because you saved Pete.”

“I would have saved him regardless,” the blond man replies. _I know._ Tony will forever be grateful to the other man for saving Peter when the latter had been trapped in the burning building. Tony is now in his debt but he doesn’t want to say that. He can’t. He is allowed some anger. He is allowed to have it. He doesn’t want to understand Captain America. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, Tony.” Good. Cuz I _won’t._

Steve is standing closer than before and Tony realises the other man is worried that he’d fall off the edge. Hah. As if. He doesn’t rectify the misplaced concern. He doesn’t remember the last time when Cap had looked at him with concern. (Not including the times when he had thought Tony would be a danger with his crazy ideas.) Steve turns away from him and faces towards the skyline and then he is sitting down, his feet dangling off the edge. The wind isn’t harsh. It is quite pleasant, in fact but he doesn’t want to share it with this Steve. (For a second his brain flashes Strange’s image and he wonders what that would have been like. Granted he already knows but still, as adults, as what they are now.)

 

“Do you know how I died, Tony?”

 

Tony raises an eyebrow at the change of the topic. “Everyone knows that, Cap. You died a heroic death. You died hunting the Hydra.” Tony says flippantly.

Steve chuckles. “That’s like saying you got hurt chasing me.” They both wince. “It doesn’t say exactly how you got hurt.” Tony can’t say if the pallid texture of the other man’s face is his natural skin or the lights. Or, maybe he can.

“Okay. I am done here.” Tony is about to call the suit on him but Steve Rogers has always had faster reflexes and grabs him by the wrist and stops him.

“Tony- please.” He sounds so broken and sad, Tony’s heart lurches. “Let me-” Tony doesn’t let him complete that sentence. He doesn’t want to hear any apology because he knows he’ll forgive Steve in a heartbeat so much as utters a ‘sorry’. He can’t. He can’t. Rhodey says he shouldn’t accept because of self-respect. Tony can’t for his heart. So, Tony does what Tony knows best. He interrupts and deflects.

“Where’s your Buckster, Capsicle? Got bored of him already?” Even to his own ears, he sounds harsh. Steve’s shoulders slump and his face get impossibly sadder and Tony didn’t know better he’d think the former martyr would start crying. “Cap?”

“Bucky is fine now. Thank you for asking.” Steve smiles but he isn’t looking at Tony at all.

Tony has several projects to work on, lots of movies to catch up on or, maybe even food to eat but he can’t bring himself to pull away. Dammit. Tony has always been a fool.

 

“What happened, Cap?” Tony sits down next to him but makes sure there’s a proper distance between them. “Is everything fine?”

 

“What had Howard told you about my death?” Steve says it so nonchalantly, it gives Tony creeps and Steve never ever talks about his past. Let alone with Tony. Maybe he talks about it all the time with Barnes.

 

“To me? Nothing in particular. I know what most know. Aunt Peggy though had mentioned you took the plane down into the ocean instead of letting Hydra‘s weapon bomb New York City?” Tony frowns. “Wait, is there some other version of it?”

Steve smiles for some reason. “No.” He shakes his head and tacks on, “but it isn’t the … whole truth.”

“Oh, you’re hiding more lies. Great. Not so out of character for you.” Tony glowers. “What did you _omit_ this time, huh?”

Steve rubs his palms together, pulling at his fingers and _that_ is very out-of-character for Steve.

“I didn’t lie - but no one asked either.”

“Can we stop talking in circles, Cap? If you don’t want to get straight with me, I can leave-”

“I survived underwater, inside an ocean for years. For decades.”

“So?” He may seem flippant but his heart is beating rapidly. “What’s your point?”

“Did you know how Bucky had died?”

“Yes, he fell off a cliff during one of the Howling Commandos mission. They teach all that in history in schools, Cap,” Tony says impatiently.

“Bucky was… when I had nothing, I had Bucky. Before I became Captain America, I was just Steve Rogers, the little skinny, scrawny boy who barely lived each day to see another. I was always angry and stubborn, picking fights with double my age, double my size. Buck always said I was stupid.” You are, Tony thinks. Steve is smiling again. “Bucky always came to rescue me, always cleaning after me. Always saving me from the bullies. Then my ma passed away and he took me in with his family. I don’t even remember when we had first met. Maybe we played in the same docks, or, neighbourhood. I don’t remember my life before him except it was cold, dark and bleak till he came in and though I was even closer to dying each day, I wanted to survive now. Have fun now.” Tony wonders, shocked and surprised why Steve is opening up to him now of all times. “The Barnes became my family. His sisters were now my sisters. His ma was now like mine. He gave me everything I could have wished for.” Steve pauses, taking a deep breath. “Then as we grew up and things got worse, Bucky take up multiple jobs so that he could buy my medicines. So, that we lived to see another day together. Bucky was a very selfless person who would have given up his life even for a stranger.” Steve curls his hands on his knees and Tony is smiling too. He had always read about Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of Howling Commandos, second-in-command to Captain America and had always been fascinated. It is good to know he sounds like the person he had imagined him to be. “ He made me a better person. Bucky was my family. When everyone was struggling to earn a livelihood for themselves, Bucky was doing everything he could to make sure I had food to eat.” Steve glances at Tony and looks away quickly. “I didn’t fancy living too much the way I did but he made sure I find it worth it and I figured… it wouldn’t be too bad if I had him. Then he went and enlisted with the army even though he didn’t care about it. I was the one who talked endlessly about fighting for the country. Bucky wanted to be nobody’s tool. He always said that the soldiers on the other side of the battle were just like us. What right, he’d always ask, we have in thinking we are better than them? But, he still went so that he could provide a roof and food for me. All he had wanted was to keep me safe and then-” Steve chokes and is now digging his nails into his knees and Tony almost holds his hand. Almost. “And then the one time Bucky needed me to save him, I let him go. On that train, I should have gone after him, look for him. At that moment, I chose to be Captain America over Bucky’s Stevie.” Steve laughs ruefully. “I have a history of doing my friends wrong.”

“Cap-”

“When I forced the plane down into the ocean, it was not really out of any selflessness. I had no will to live in a world where there was no Bucky. I didn’t want to live knowing I had betrayed my friend.” Tony listens with horror, terrified as Steve continues, “Schmidt was zapped by the Tesseract. I was alone on the plane. It crashed into the water, I could have swum out but I didn’t.”

“You didn’t-” Tony stares at him in disbelief. “Oh god, why would you that?” Tony gasps, horrified. Steve smiles sheepishly,

“Death didn’t seem that bad without Bucky.” 

The realisation hits Tony hard. “You love him.” He doesn’t have to ask. “Why aren’t you with him now? T’Challa said he had a lot of progress. You can actually be with him now.” Tony doesn’t want to say that but he does.

“I am just a reminder of another memory he doesn’t have. He doesn’t deserve to be disturbed by his past when he can look forward to a better future. My love will only be an obstacle.”

Tony’s eyes do a funny twitch at the L word. He clears his throat. “So you left him where? In Wakanda?”

Steve looks at him properly, finally and says proudly, “he is now a Wakanda citizen.”

“Okay?” Tony is confused and notices the healing wound near his temple. “How did that happen?”

“What?” Steve touches the side of his head. He chuckles. “From your glass.”

“Oh. Shit. I thought the compound was empty. I mean, except for me.”

Steve stops Tony's hand which had involuntarily reached out to touch the gash. “It is okay.” Tony pulls his hand back quickly.

“I never had a chance with you. Had I?” He thinks Steve will not get it but to his surprise, he does.

“No. I am sorry.” Steve hangs his head low.

“Even if he hadn’t come back?”

“I wouldn’t have cheated on you Tony but my heart wouldn’t have belonged to you.” He says regrettably and frowns. Ouch.

“You don’t mince your words, do you.”

“And you deserve better. You deserve a man who’ll love you wholeheartedly.”

“That isn’t you, is it?” Tony huffs and stands up. He groans as his bone joints up. He is growing so old. Deserving a man who’ll love me wholeheartedly, my ass. And exactly who’d be that? No one. “What are you even doing here, Cap?” Tony crosses his arms over his chest and glares. “I’m really glad you shared your riveting, Romeo Juliet- more like Romeo Romeo love story. I am extremely enthralled that you think I deserved to hear this (Tony doesn’t mean it. He wants to tell him sorry. He wants to tell him he wants to be there for him) but why the fuck _are_ you here? You are still a war criminal.”

 

“I have come to turn myself in.”

 

Tony splutters for a whole minute. “Wait, back up, what did you say? I don’t think I heard it right. Ha ha. I thought you said you would like to turn yourself in.” Steve doesn’t look the least bothered with Tony’s antics. Not even the usual exasperation and that bothers Tony. Steve stands up now.

“I am going to sign the Accords.”

“What the fuck- no.”

“Is there a problem?”

“You are serious?”

“Have I ever been otherwise?”

“Huh.” Tony uncrosses his arms and crosses them again. “You sure?”

“Hundred percent.” Steve although is war-worn, he speaks with the righteous determination that he always has.

“Okay,” Tony swallows. “Okay.”

“Thank you.” Steve bows to him slightly and Tony’s eyebrows raise to his hairline at the subconscious gesture on the taller man’s part and he is walking away and Tony keeps watching the retreating back. Captain America, the hero of his childhood but is actually just a young man with guilt and burden on his broad shoulders. Steve stops few feet away and says over his shoulder, “for what it is worth, Tony, Bucky may have been my everything, but I have always thought of you as a trusted friend.” Then, he is gone.

 

Like they say, never meet your heroes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a bit longer for Strange... a little while longer.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Look who finally turned up ;)

_This is your legacy_

 

_It is Obie sitting next to him. Tony doesn’t remember falling asleep. Obie puts a hand around Tony’s shoulder and caresses it and Tony gets goosebumps. He tries to shirk off the disgusting touch but he is unable to move. He finds himself paralyzed and Tony’s frail heart thuds painfully against its cage._

 

_I hope the world remembers you._

 

_His mouth seems to say but it sounds nothing like Obie. Tony falls off the couch and face-plants onto the ground. He eats a mouthful of dust which he spits out coughing. It is a dream, he realises. He is asleep and he is dreaming. Okay, okay, Tones, relax. Relax._

 

 

_Sacrifice_

 

_Random words fleet through the walls of his mind like the Basilisk in Hogwarts._

 

_Hope… failure… legacy… merchant of death_

 

_Tony finds himself standing in an endless corridor with thick, dark walls of some castle and he knows his mind has conjured up his own version of Hogwarts._

 

 

_I don’t feel so good, Mr Stark_

 

_Tony despite knowing that it is a nightmare and he could change it enough to not be so, he runs fast on his feet trying to find the source of the sound._

 

“Mr Stark!”

 

_I am sorry_

 

_The corridors get darker the further he runs into them and the darkness descends like a pressure on his chest, on his heart. Tony doesn’t want to panic. It is just a dream, just a dream._

 

“Mr Stark!”

 

_Tony runs. Somebody is calling for him, someone. Is that Peter? Something fills the air and it smells like the burned and the dead. Is it ash? Is it ash? Is it ash? Why is Peter not calling him anymore?_

 

_Peter!_

 

_Pete!_

 

_Tony is frantic on his feet. He is not going to lose him again. Not even in his dreams._

 

“Mr Stark!”

 

Tony’s eyes open and a worried Peter Parker’s face comes into his vision. “Hey.” He looks around. He is lying on his couch in the Compound’s Communal Hall and Peter is kneeling next to him on the floor.

“Pete-”

“Hey, I am here. I am okay,” Peter says slowly and softly like it is Tony who needs assuring. “I am safe.” Peter smiles that innocent smile of his and Tony sits up with a jolt and hugs the boy. He is safe. He is here, next to him. He is _alive_ . Tony hugs him tighter. Tony feels Peter melt into the hug. “You are okay. We are both okay.” Peter is rubbing a hand on his side and Tony doesn’t want to let the boy go out of his sight again.

 

But, he has to. “Okay.” His breathing is slowing down as he pulls away. “I am glad.”

“Me too.”

“Good morning, boss,” FRIDAY’s voice finally floats in. “It is Saturday, ten past eleven. Your breakfast is waiting for you in the kitchen.”

“My breakfast?” Both Tony and Peter sit up on the couch, tucking their legs in. Peter unloads his school bag’s content on the glass table in front of them. “Who made this breakfast?”

“I did,” Nebula says, peeking her head out of the kitchen. “I am not sure how edible it is for human consumption but I hope-”, she waves her hand about shyly and Tony turns towards Peter who is grinning at him. Tony swings his legs down and strides towards her.

“Oh my god, when did you come?”

“Well-”

“At seven in the morning, boss. Since you were-”

“Hush, Fry.” Tony embraces her and Nebula only awkwardly pats him on the shoulder. “Welcome back home.” Tony pales a little. Maybe this is too soon or she doesn’t feel that way. They never did, why would she? He tries to backtrack but she smiles bashfully at him and Peter (who has popped up behind Tony) and says,

“Thank you. I am glad to be home.”

Nebula was supposed to have been gone for a week which extended then to a month and then longer. It has been four months since she had left and four months since a blond, supersoldier had walked back into his life and almost a year since the “Infinity War”.

“So what is that thing you said about breakfast?” 

Tony walks to the kitchen and Nebula and Peter trail after him.

“Well, it is based on a herb once found on my planet”, she begins nervously.

(“Oooh, we are going to eat extra-terrestrial herbs. Cool!”, Peter interjects with way too much enthusiasm.)

“We are eating alien plants now?” Tony is handed a hot mug of coffee and he gives Peter a grateful smile. “Thanks, Pete.”

“But, I am not sure how much it’ll be digestible by the human intestines.” Tony glances at the breakfast prepared. They look like simple sandwiches. FRIDAY launches into a long ass explanation. Peter is eyeing at the sandwiches like they could poison (they learned it the hard way. Nebula was no Masterchef.) and Nebula looks hopeful and Tony isn’t sure if he should be brave enough to have this and both Tony and Peter are looking at the innocent food with suspicion but with every longer second Nebula’s face falls. Alright then.

“Shush it, Fry-fry. Nebula, go on. Surprise me.” That’s all it takes for Nebula to brighten up and she slides the plates towards them. Peter gets a call (it is that Fred boy; Peter has that stupid ‘When I Was Your Man’ ringtone for him. He wonders if he should be reading anything into it) and dashes from the kitchen. Tony grabs a tool and sits down, his back facing the wall. He picks up one of the triangular-cut pieces and chews it. He is proud how fast Nebula is picking things about the human world. The herb is - Tony tries not to cough. He thinks maybe it is an acquired taste. He decides it has to be so. He hopes Nebula is an expert on the cuisine of her own planet.

“It is good. Mmmm..” He flashes her a thumbs up. She grins and goes to catch Peter.

Tony is diligently but quickly finishing his meal. He is trying not to fall asleep on it. Peter and Nebula are not back even by the time he is done.

Kids.

Tony huffs. Why does he always have be to the adult one?

“Maybe because you want to feel young, Boss.” Okay, so he said that out loud.

“Being with teenagers doesn’t make me feel _young_ , Little Fish, it makes me feel even older.” He stares at the nearest camera. “How did you even come up with that logic, Fry?”

“You know I am right, Boss”, she replies cryptically.

Tony hears the approaching footsteps. He puts his hands on the counter and snuggles his face into the crook of his elbow. His eyelids are heavy and his vision is blurry. His eyes are drooping when he hears a faint, very faint sound, like that of glass shattering. Tony puts his head up but a warm hand covers his eyes.

“Rest, Tony.”

 

 

*

 

 

By the time Tony wakes up, his neck is aching and Steve is sitting on the stool next to him.

“Hey,” Tony says, his voice scratchy and catches the drool with the back of his hand before it splats on the polished marble counter. How embarrassing.

“Hey,” Steve says pleasantly. Tony gets up and stretches his arms. His back hurt. “Didn’t sleep well at night?”

“Was fixin’ Pete’s suit,” Tony mumbles and gets a tumbler and fills it with water. “Wassup wi’ you?” Tony rolls his eye, trying to clear the sleep out of them. 

“Finishing paperwork.”

“Ah, very sexy.” 

“Indeed.” Steve chuckles. “The kids are upstairs in .. the other workshop.”

Tony finds it odd how Steve even puts Nebula in that category when the latter could possibly be older than both the men’s age combined. Although Nebula is still very much like Peter in innocence and childishness. She is Peter’s Other Best friend. Tony is glad that kid has more and more friends now. (He remembers Happy and Rhodey’s faces when he had made this observation in front of them and they had been like “Seriously? Didn’t you say she’s Thanos’s daughter? That she is a psychopath? You think it is good for your kid to be best friends with _her/ _)__

__Tony trusts Peter’s spidey senses more than himself so he is assured of that choice._ _

__“Tony?”_ _

__Oh, spaced out again. “You were saying?”_ _

__Steve gives him an odd look but thankfully, continues, “The kids were excited about something. Nebula brought some transmitter. I just heard some “inter-dimensional”, “corresponder” before they took off for the workshop.”_ _

__Tony recalls if they had mentioned something of the likes in the morning- Tony looks out the window to check and it is definitely not morning with those purple and orange colours streaking the sky (God, how did he manage to sleep for so long?) - and he can think of no such thing._ _

__“Thanks,” Tony puts the tumbler down on the counter and pats Steve on the shoulder awkwardly not so much unlike Nebula had and quickly escapes from the kitchen. He also sneak-peaks at the sketch that Steve is actually doing instead of the paperwork and he winces because it was Tony he had been sketching and he had said ‘indeed’ to Tony’s sexy remark. Ugh. Don’t complicate, Tony. Don’t. He is just an artist. He is a better artist than being your friend. This means nothing. “Friday, what are the little devils up to?” He needs to brush, take a quick shower and check up on them. Peter only spends weekends with him now and he doesn’t want to waste the day any further. Working with Peter is always fun._ _

__“They are on their way up as we speak. ETA, two minutes.”_ _

__“Hmmm…” Tony picks the discarded notebooks and pencils on the carpet and puts them on the table. Children. Was he too like this? Nope, he was worse. No doubt Howard was always annoyed. He quietly cleans up the mess on the floor. The elevator dings and two excited voices pour into the silent communal hall. “What’s got your p- I mean, what has you so excited?”_ _

__“Tony!” They both say in unison with excitement and bound towards him, Peter more than Nebula but that is understandable. “You slept,” Nebula sulkily._ _

__“Yeah, was a little sleepy.” Tony scratches his chest absently. He has removed the nanobot storehouse from his chest. He is trying to be less paranoid. He is trying to act less paranoid. He slept like he had been drugged and mentally notes down to ask FRIDAY to scan the alien herb and its possible side-effects. Maybe he could make his own version of Sleeping Draught._ _

__“Mr Stark!”_ _

__“Anthony!”_ _

__“Yeah, yeah, I’m listening.”_ _

__

__

__***_ _

__

__

__

__Steve shuts his journal on the pen and the incomplete sketch. He gets up from the chair and joins the other occupants of the Compound._ _

__

__“What Master do you serve?” Tony is saying trying to deepen his voice, imitating some poor soul very poorly as he flails his hand about like he is about to start doing some martial arts. Peter scrunches his face into a very strange expression and sounds very different as he speaks with a different accent,_ _

__“What Master do I serve? What am I supposed to say? **Jesus** ?” Peter is definitely better at impersonation than Tony is. All of them burst into laughter, even Nebula. Steve knows it is one of those in-jokes they have that he isn’t privy to. If he asks, they’ll explain. He doesn’t ask though. It doesn’t feel like his right to know. As Tony laughs, both Peter and Tony continuing to saying things rapidly that he can’t really follow even with his Super senses, he gazes forlornly at the short man as he leans on the wall, crossing his hands on his chest. He shouldn’t be privy to this at all. Tony is wheezing, his hands on his knees. Steve shouldn’t be allowed here- not after what he did to Tony. He still flinches at the memory. _ _

__

__He is going to rectify his mistakes._ _

__

__“Hey, Cap!” Peter notices him first. Tony turns around grinning but it falters when he sees him. “We are going to space!” The little kid’s excitement is so infectious that Tony’s face lights up again._ _

__

__

__

__*_ _

__

__

__It has been several hours since they have been in what Peter calls the Web Lab (and Tony calls Aragog’s Nest; Steve doesn’t get that reference) - it is Peter’s very own workshop and they are ‘tinkering’ on an alien object trying to make it adaptable to human interface, Tony had kindly explained. Peter had then informed him that they have friends up in space (Steve now lives that kind of life apparently) who are outlaws but like to save the galaxy (Steve doesn’t get that concept but okay). They are a band of different species who are pretty famous out _there_ and Tony Stark is an honorary member of said group. Nebula’s sister is one of them. (She used to be a fearsome assassin in the galaxy, Tony says with a dreamy look but is sadly taken and Steve wonders how they have so many assassins in their lives). They are trying to establish a connection with them with the instrument Nebula brought back with her from the trip. Steve had never cared about science and its hocus-pocus. It was always a means to an end for him, if at all but it was something Bucky liked. Bucky had always loved anything that had to do with science. Steve sits quietly next to Bruce who dropped by to help them. He watches as FRIDAY finally is able to read the device on her server and there are hi-fives all around and they are congratulating each other. Peter is standing on his chair and is chattering something that Steve tunes out. He is just here for- Steve doesn’t want to admit he is trying to live Bucky’s choices for him but he is doing some poor job of well, everything._ _

Then, Peter is perking his ears up like an honest to god puppy (he is adorable) and is getting off his chair so quickly that Steve grabs his shield even before he can process exactly what is happening. He _then_ hears that faint sound he had caught the other day and earlier in the morning in the kitchen and there are orange sparks in the middle of the air. Steve stands up as a tall man steps out of thin air and his jaws fall open. _It is a new world, Stevie. It is nothing like yours and mine._

__

__

__

__“What the hell are you doing, Stark?”_ _


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'll give you my blessing  
> Take me person and objectively  
> Ex and internally"
> 
> \- Belong to You I Sabrina Claudio

_Tony had often wondered the answer himself even before they had asked. Peter and Steve had been talking about how the world had been halved. Everyone had lost one person significant to them. Steve had lost Bucky. Natasha had lost Clint. Rocket had lost Groot. Aunt May had lost Peter. Who had Tony lost? Because both Pepper and Rhodey had been still around and they had lost a member of each of their respective families. Who had then Tony lost? Had Tony been like Thor? Nobody left to lose? Had there been no one for him?_

 

 

**_There was no other way_**

 

 

_Tony had shied away from that conversation._

 

 

_Who had lost Stephen Strange? The man who exchanged Tony’s life for his own. Would somebody have missed Strange? Had it been Wong? Tony had several questions but nobody to ask them to. The people who could have answered him aren’t there. Had Doctor Stephen Strange, the Master of Mystic Arts been the exchange of one soul for another? Had he been the sacrifice for the restoration? Or, had Tony done some miscalculation and had left behind the very person who had made all this possible?_

 

 

 

_God, what had Tony done._

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Tony’s ears pop as he feels a shift in the air and then Peter is getting off the chair and Steve is grabbing the shield and then the sparks-flying portal opens.

“What the hell are you doing, Stark?”

The coffee mug slips from Tony’s hand and crashes on the ground. He barely registers the scalding coffee burning his skin.

“Oh my god, Mr Doctor Strange is alive!” Strange winces. “Tony, look!” Peter is already rushing towards him. Tony grabs him by the arm and stops him. “Mr Stark?” Peter looks between them in confusion.

Tony’s heart beats louder in his chest. Is this too an illusion?

“Are you trying to open another portal?” Strange is frowning at them, especially, Nebula. “Aren’t there enough aliens? Or, aren’t you satisfied with all the destruction?” Strange is looking down with that haughty expression he had even back as a kid.

“Who are you?” Steve asks. (‘Oh my god’, he hears Bruce’s whisper.)

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Strange snaps. Tony raises the other hand and fires a repulsor at the Sorcerer who deftly blocks it or absorbs it or sends it to some other dimension. (There is a collective ‘Tony!’) Strange only quirks an eyebrow at Tony and says smugly, “that’s all you got?”

That bastard. 

Tony pulls Peter behind him and fires the repulsor again.

“Mr Stark, what are you doing!” “Tony!”

Strange barely dodges it but is already hitting him with a sparkly circular thing that flies towards him but Tony is just as fast, evades it and readies to fire the next round but an orange sparkly whip lashes out. Strange is going to hit him. Tony flinches. The strange magical thing instead only curls around him (he hadn’t realised he had closed his eyes) and pulls Tony gently towards the doctor. It lets go of Tony when he is within a few feet of the magician.

“I am not going to hit you, Tony,” Strange says softly. Weirdly. Like he knows what Tony had thought.

“How are you alive?”

“Like the rest of you?” Strange flicks a finger and the air around them ripples and then the whole, the actual world comes back into focus. “That was the mirror dimension. No damage was done to Peter’s lab.” He shrugs like it is no big thing. Tony looks around. True to his word, the workshop is untouched.

“What the fuck just happened?”, Bruce asks. Nebula is running towards the end of the lab where the two of them are now standing, a dagger in her hand.

“Stand down,” Tony says, “He is no enemy.”

She skids to a halt. “Anthony, he-”

“No! He is the sorcerer we told you about, Nebz,” Peter says cheerfully like his workshop hadn’t been destroyed (it hadn’t, not in this dimension but whatever. Semantics.) “He knows some really mean tricks!” Tony isn’t able to hear what Steve mumbles over Peter’s voice but he hears Bruce explain to the brawny soldier who Stephen Strange is. “It is good to see you again, Mr D-”

“ _Doctor_ , it is Doctor Strange,” Strange says affronted.

“Sorry,” Peter scratches the back of his head and says sheepishly, “It is good to see you again, Doctor Strange.” Bruce walks towards them, his hands raised for a hug. He actually hugs the doctor who shoots Tony a pained look. He smirks. Strange rolls his eyes and pulls away from the hug quickly.

“It is good to see you’re alive, Dr Strange.”

“Everyone keeps saying that.” The man in question makes a face but nods at Bruce in greeting.

“Because we thought we lost you,” Peter says quietly. The Sorcerer looks at the boy flummoxed like he had said something entirely alien. Tony knows that look. 

 

_Why would you do that_

 

Strange hadn’t expected to have been missed - or, just a humble, one thought could have been dedicated to him and his whereabouts. Huh. Tony wonders what he will look like if the other man finds out all the effort Tony had put in to look for him.

“What are you hoping to achieve by opening a portal?”

“We are just trying to establish contacts with the- with the, er…” Bruce stammers.

“With the Guardians of the Galaxy!” Peter adds helpfully, “remember, we met them on Titan!” Strange groans. “Hey, Cloaky!” Peter waves a hand at the cloak (Tony facepalms) and the cloak flaps and hits Strange on the cheek who pulls it off with irritation. The Cloak happily floats to Peter and stays next to him.

“Nebula here thought we could use this to signal,” Tony jabs a thumb towards the girl, “and ask for a Jetsons Airbus pass to the galaxy.”

“Only it rips open through the dimensions.” Strange strides towards the hologram projection and rolls his eyes again. (Drama queen, Tony thinks.) “Earth is protected from such interference. Why do you think aliens had been a sci-fi until the last decade? Because contact with the outside world is prohibited.”

“What, seriously?!” Three of them exclaim loudly. Strange barely stops himself from rolling his eyes for the third time.

“Yes, the lesser contact, the lesser chances of being invaded.”

“Oh yeah, because that helped last time so much.” Tony rolls his eyes this time.

“Trust me, if we hadn’t put these wards around, Thanos wouldn’t have needed Loki for invasion.”

“Oh, I do,” Tony says flippantly and glances at Steve. He is standing farthest from them, his shield in his hand, ready.

Bruce gives him a surprised look (so does everyone actually) and asks, “But, this is only like a radio transmitter. How can this tear through another dimension?” Bless Banner. Tony turns away from them and watches Dummy trying to clear away the shards of his mug.

“The wards block any and every such attempt but this is alien tech,” Strange says with disdain, “If this is continued, you’ll very likely find another wormhole in your hands.”

“Like the one in New York?”

“Like that.” The creepy Cloak leaves Peter and is now next to Tony as if it is too watching Dummy clean away the mess. It freaks Tony out a little bit. Strange mutters something and the hologram disappears. The alien transmitter combusts and Nebula is trying to stab Strange but Peter is restraining her and Bruce is scratching his head, his mind probably trying to calculate the implications of what the Sorcerer said. Strange is still standing there like an attempt to his life isn’t being right then. He looks quite poised and wonders what exactly can’t ruffle the man’s feather. Even in front of Thanos, he had been quite the picture of calmness. Maybe being a neurosurgeon turned his nerves to vibranium. He is still staring at Tony like he is some puzzle. This is Tony’s cue to flirt or say something sarcastic to hide how with every passing second the gaze is flustering him but he can’t because all he can think of is,

You were dead, you were dead, you were dead.

The Cloak goes and settles on Stranger’s shoulders.

You died. Hadn’t you? I didn’t bring you back.

“Thank you, Tony Stark.”

I thought you didn’t come back. I- Wait, what? Tony’s head snaps up. 

“Hello, I am Steve Rogers,” Steve decides to speak up finally and extends a hand for a shake.

“Oh, I know who you are.” Strange says in that trademark Stephen Strange Condescending tone that it has all the three scientists look at him with comically wide eyes (Peter is a scientist in training, still), looking down his nose. Tony would have clocked him in the face for talking to Steve like that but he has never ever _ever_ heard anyone talk like that to Captain America. They are all stunned.

“Okay,” Steve laughs unlike chinning up for a fight like he had with Tony (did Steve have a reaction like that only with him? Tony would have called it their UST before. Not so much now.) “I’ll get back to my work.” Steve sidesteps them and walks out of the workshop. Tony stares at the blond man and then back at the brunet in front of him who winks at him before a portal opens behind the latter and steps back into it and is gone. Tony’s heart may have a skedaddled a bit at that bit and may have made his cheeks a little warmer especially since Peter turns to him grinning. Tony pushes Peter away by his face.

“No comments, Smartypants.”

“Holy shit,” Bruce always has a late reaction, “I never thought anyone could talk to Steve like that.”

“Who talked to Steve like what?” A new voice says and they all look back at the new arrival.

“Wizard,” Nebula replies. Tony can’t tell if she is smirking or frowning.

“Hey, honey bear.” Tony goes and hugs Rhodey. “When did you come back?”

“What Wizard?” Rhodey asks Nebula (bless his friend. He never ignores or fears her.) “Just a while back, Tones. Friday said you all were up here.”

Peter and Bruce come bustling towards them, like the gossip mongers they are. “You won’t believe what just happened!”

“Doctor Strange is alive!” Peter says and Tony knows the boy is happy. To know everyone but the last man you had fought with was back isn’t the best boost to morale. (Besides Tony suspects Peter’s good naive heart had been lured by the wizard’s “mean” parlour tricks.)

“What happened, Dr Banner?” Rhodey asks, amused.

“Nothing important, Rhodes. He just turned down Steve’s handshake.” Tony explains. Nebula snickers.

“I missed it. I like him then.” Tony rubs his face on his best friend’s shoulder

“He winked at Mr Stark!” Peter shouts. Tony groans. “Look at his face!”

“Tones?” Rhodey laughs and looks at him.

Tony glares at Bruce before he jumps on Peter. “You little snitch,” Tony grabs him in a headlock and tickles him.

“Oh my god, I am sorry, so sorry. I am s-so sorry, Mr Stark.” Tony tickles him harder. Nebula joins him. Bruce and Rhodey distance themselves from them as Peter falls on the floor, his face red as he tries to push the nefarious hands away. “I’ll- I’ll”, Peter gasps, unable to string syllable together further. Tony decides it is enough for the spidey senses and lets him go. Bruce is now relaying to Rhodey everything that they had been doing in the workshop. Nebula manhandles Peter into the seat nearest to him  
and offers him a bottle of water. Tony is really proud of her progress. Tony had comeback just in time for Rhodey’s trial and had saved his friend from court-martial. Rhodey had taken voluntary discharge a few weeks later. He preferred “tinkering” with Tony and looking after his “careless ass”. Tony is grateful.

 

 

Now that he knows Strange too is safe and sound, he can relax a little.

 

 

It only strikes him much later that Strange knew it was _Peter’s_ lab and not his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, everyone, for the kudos and the comments!


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Save my soul for me,  
> ‘Cause I am alone, you see.”
> 
> \- **Pray for me I The Weeknd & Kendrick Lamar**

“I thought I signed all the documents.”

“Tony, we still need to discuss how we are going to proceed with the Avengers Initiative.”

Tony pushes his goggles up and leans back into his chair and slides from one corner of the table to the other. “What is there to discuss?” He needs to fix the HUD of one of the older armours, some of the repulsors and fix some bugs in Karen. “Fry buddy, can you start the scan on Karen.”

“Of course, boss.”

“Thanks, love.”

“Tony?”

“Oh, hey, Pep, Peppery Potts,” Tony slides back quickly and picks the phone from the table. “I am all ears.”

“Uh huh.”

“I am, really.”

“You have a meeting in Geneva on Tuesday.”

“Tuesday, right.” Tony doesn’t remember. Friday flashes the details of the new Accords session next to him immediately. Tony winks at the nearest camera. “Yes, I remember.”

“You are looking at the mail right now, aren’t you?”

“Do you have a spy camera here, Ms Potts? Should I be worried?”

“I need no cameras to know what you are doing. They are expecting you to fund the Avengers Initiative and everything that entails it.”

Tony sighs. “I know.”

“We don’t have to do this, Tony. Say it and I will withdraw SI completely from this. You don’t have to do this.”

Tony rubs his temple. “No, Pep. You are the only one I can trust this with.”

“Tony…”

There is only pity now in her voice. Tony shuts his eyes and counts till three in his head. “SI will continue to finance and PR for Avengers. If that’d be all, I’d like to get back to my work.”

“No. That’s all.”

The call ends.

“Boss, the scan has been completed. I fixed some of the bugs already. Maybe you would like to look at the rest?”

“Thank you. What are the kids doing, Fry?” She doesn’t reply for a few seconds. Tony frowns. “Friday?”

“Boss, Mr Parker encountered some problem while trying to fix Ms Nebula. He is on his way. ETA seven minutes.”

“Where is the alien kid now?”

“She retired to her bedroom.”

“What about the super soldier?”

“He is at the Gym.”

“Okay.”

“Mr Parker’s ETA is under sixty seconds.”

“You just said-”

The door to his workshop slams open and then Peter appears, his hair windswept. That explains. The boy can’t use his legs like regular kids of his age.

“Mr Stark!”

“Hey, Pete!” He swivels around in his chair. “How can I help you?”

Peter stops a few feet away from him. “I wanted to talk to you about Nebula.”

Tony cocks his head to a side, “what happened?” Peter looks nervous, wringing his hands. “Come here. Grab a stool and sit.” Peter does that. “Tell me.” He smiles to try and calm the harried-looking boy.

“I am worried about her.”

“Friday said you were trying to fix her but there were some problems?”

“I wasn’t trying to _fix_ her, Mr Stark.” Peter glares.

“Sorry, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Peter sighs and begins again, “you know how she needs…”

“Maintenance for lack of a better word, yes and ?”

“We also know that we are not equipped to just…” Peter turns a shade red, “fix… those parts. Alien tech and such.”

“We have been trying to fix but her body rejects them.”

“Why can’t we replace them with human tech then? That way it’ll be less maintenance time and less pain.”

“She said no to that already, Peter.”

“We don’t tell her then!” He bursts out and then shrinks into himself as Tony raises his eyebrow at him. His face turns darker in shame. “Sorry. I just-”

“I know. I know you worry about her and want her to get better. Maybe even more than what she wants for herself but it is her body, Pete. It is her choice.”

“But she is _hurting_ , Mr Stark. Sometimes all she does is move her hand, and she is bleeding. Sometimes there is blood instead of tears.”

Tony holds Peter’s hands because he is aware all of them are helpless in this case.

“She’s been through too much torture and pain. For us, ‘fixing’ maybe getting better but to her, it is just memories of suffering.”

Peter’s eyes are wide and pained. He looks exactly like what Tony feels. “Then what do we do? Stark Tech is the best that we got. Should we take her to the doctors up in the space?” Tony gives out a short bark of laughter at the earnest but ridiculous statement.

“Stark Tech isn’t the only best. I’ll talk to T’Challa and see what he has to suggest.”

“T’Challa? You mean, the Wakandan _King_ ? You guys are friends?! You are friends with a king?”

“Pete, he fought alongside us in Germany. Or, do you not remember that?”

“He wasn’t Wakanda’s King then.” Tony rolls his eyes. “He should be extremely busy, right? Maybe he won’t receive our calls.” Peter’s eyes bug out a little. “Do we have to go to his palace to ask for attendance? What if he says no? What will we do then? What if his guards don’t even let us in? What if-”

“We don’t have to go anywhere. I’ll _tell_ him.”

“Why will the King of Wakanda talk to you?” Peter scoffs.

“Because I am Tony Stark?” Seriously, has the kid forgotten who he is? It is as if Tony has become an average, regular man in his eyes. He can’t decide if it is good or bad.

“Haha.” He stares at Tony’s phone expectantly.

“I am not calling him right now.”

“Why not!”

“Because I will be meeting him in another two days and I’ll talk to him in person. Like you said he is a busy man. No need to disturb him right now.”

“You are a busy man too,” Peter points out.

“Exactly.”

“Do you think they’ll let me work in Wakanda in future?” Tony looks up from the holoprojection. What? Peter doesn’t want to stay with him and continue? “They have a culture and science outreach programme in Brooklyn. Maybe I should I go inquire there and see if they would like to -” Of course, the kid wants to go. He wants to do better. Tony will never stand in his way. If he wants to gain knowledge the Wakandan way, Tony will fully support him. “Oh god,” Tony hears before Peter whacks the goggles off from his head onto his face. “I’m just messing with ya. I have no plans of leaving you, Mr Stark.”

Tony blinks. “What do you mean?”

“There’s nothing I can learn there that you can’t teach me already.” Peter smiles. He hugs Tony and he lets himself be hugged, baffled. “I am not leaving. I was just kidding.” 

Tony’s face heat a little. Had he been that obvious? “Yeah, yeah. Say what you will.” Everyone leaves. There is no need to say that aloud. The kid is stubborn and will promise Tony more things that will come to mean nothing in another few years. “Shoo, I need to debug Karen before I can return you the suit. Do I need to drop you home?”

“Huh? No.” He stands up from his tool.

“I’ll ask Happy to-”

“Happy is in NYC, Mr Stark and no, I’ll be meeting Ned. We have some plans.”

“Okay.” Peter’s almost out the door when he calls out, “hey, Pete?”

“Yes, Mr Stark?”

“Freddy is your guy in the chair, right?”

“Ned, Mr Stark and yes. Why?”

“He is your best friend, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Is something up between you two?”

“No?” Peter’s face scrunches adorably, confused, “why? Did something happen? Did he say something?” Peter is perplexed.

“What is his ringtone about then?”

“Oh you mean-” Peter’s eyes are wide for the nth time and he guffaws. “Mr Stark, oh gosh, nooooo. Ned is my best friend. We aren’t or weren’t dating, Mr Stark.” He laughs hysterically.

“Then, why…?”

“That’s a stupid dare MJ gave. You know how she is.”

“You sure?” Tony knows how thin that line is and how easy it is to cross the line. “It is pretty easy to catch feelings.”

“Thank you, Mr Stark, but no. I’ll tell Ned though. He is going to have a riot.”

“Hey, now, no need to make me look like an old man in front of your _best_ friend.”

“You are old, Gramps.” Peter sticks his tongue out and leaves Tony’s workshop prancing.

“Fry, call Aunt May.”

“On it.”

Tony gets up to check the nearest screen for the logs running and noting the changes he would have to make.

“Hello, Mr Stark.” May Parker’s voice fills in the workshop.

“Good morning, Aunt May and it is Tony. Call me Tony.”

“As soon as you start calling me May.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

Her laugh is not that different from Peter. It is unrestrained and heartwarming. “Will Peter be reaching home late?”

Tony taps on the screen. “No. Well, he’ll be leaving soon. He has some plans with his friends so I am not sure what time he’ll be reaching.”

“Friends? You mean, Ned and MJ?”

“Yeah.” Tony un-tucks the pen from behind his ear and scratches some numbers on his palm.

“Okay. Don’t worry. I’ll text you when he reaches home.”

Tony scratches out the numbers. “Thank you.”

“I’ll talk to you later then?”

“Sure.” The call ends. Tony slouches. He has no idea why May Parker trusts him with her nephew’s safety. She often assures him that Peter is doing fine when it should have been the other way round. She had lost the nephew she had raised like her own son and yet it was she who had been understanding and supporting Tony through the loss. It had been her loss and yet she had stood by rock solid when he had broken down. She shares Peter with him every weekend when she could have had the boy all to herself. She could have forbidden Peter from seeing Tony ever again but she encourages him (not that that boy needs much of it) to come hang out at the Avengers Compound. She trusts Tony to look out for Peter. Why.

 

Would his mother have done the same in a situation like that?

 

No doubt Peter is such a wonderful child. He has people like May Parker in his life.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

It is three in the morning, his eyes burn from sleep deprivation. Peter is gone. Nebula is in one of the facilities. Bruce and Rhodey are sleeping. 

“What is our martyr up to, Fish?”

“He is… having what you call nightmares.” If AIs sighed, then FRIDAY would have definitely been sighing now.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

_The water is cold and it pricks his skin. In his body, outside his body. It is like thousands of knives piercing his body and worse. Steve struggles to dispel the water out of his lungs but it is filling him. It is drowning him. It hurts his eyes, his ears, his body. It is dark, it is dark, it is dark._

 

_And it is cold. Like the cold winters of his childhood he had left behind. It hurts everywhere._

 

**_Steve_ **

_Bucky._

_He gasps and opens his eyes but more cold, bone-chilling water rush in as he chokes._

_Bucky_

_Bucky_

 

_His friend fell. His friend had fallen. Bucky had fallen knowing Steve didn’t save him. He failed him. Steve has failed Bucky._

 

_If he manages to escape from here, what lies for him out there?_

 

_What will he do without Bucky? What is the world without Bucky?_

 

_He is the reason why Bucky no longer lives. What right does he have then, to live?_

 

_Steve stops struggling. His limbs go loose._

 

**_Wait for me, Buck._ **

 

Steve hears the footsteps before he opens his eyes. He grabs the intruder, twists their arms and pins them to the ground. His heartbeat is wild and digs his knees into the latter’s back. “Who are you?”, he demands.

“Steve, it’s me. Tony.” Steve tightens the arms. They are without any weapon possession. “Fuck you, Steven. I’m Stark.” Stark. He knows that name. It starts to clear the fog in his head. “Get off my back.” Stark struggles underneath him but Steve pins him down harder. “Friday.”

“Hello, Captain Rogers,” Steve looks up at the ceiling, frowning. “I am Friday. Mr Stark’s AI and the housekeeper of Avengers Compound. You are Steven Grant Rogers holding down my boss right now. Anthony Edward Stark, son of Howard Stark. Mr Howard Stark and Dr Erskine-”

“I know who Howard is.” Steve blinks several times. “Was.”

“Are you done now? I am almost fifty now. I am going to become a senior citizen in a few years. This kinky style isn’t really my shit anymore. Get the fuck. Off. Right. Now.” Steve sits back on his haunches as Howard’s son scampers off. Steve can make out the glower directed his way. His sharp vision and the moonlight streaming through the screen doors to the balcony helps. He watches as the man rubs his own wrists gingerly and curses under breath without pause. Steve is almost impressed. The shorter man is, however, no match for the proud members of the Howling Commandos. “Fri, is he out of it yet?”

“Not sure, boss.”

“Why are you here?” Steve asks.

“Finally recognise me?”

“Answer my question.”

“Fuck you.”

“No.” Steve shifts on his legs and Stark junior instantly moves back. “I mean no harm.”

“Like I’ll believe you.”

“I am not stopping you from leaving,” Steve says.

“You were having a nightmare, Capsicle.” Tony points at the bed and Steve notices to his horror the shredded bed sheets. “Do you know how much those cost and how many of those you have torn?”

Capsicle. “Tony?”

“Oh, now he remembers.” Steve stands up, wondering why he was surprised with his own agility for a second, he should be used to the body by now. For some reason, Tony backs away even further (what is Tony even doing in his bedroom?) and struggles to stand up. Steve reaches out to help him but Tony only slaps his hand away. “Keep your hands to yourself, will you?”

“What happened?” Tony is in his pyjama suit and looks on the edge of panic. “Did I hurt you?” He can’t recall. He was sleeping and was dreaming and then he was on the floor. Awake.

“No,” Tony snaps. “Have a good night’s sleep and stop shredding my damn stuff.” He is trying to walk away without explaining so Steve grabs him by the elbow and pulls him back. He is sometimes still astonished by the strength he has now. He can easily pull someone like Tony now and he may have pulled him too hard. “What the fuck are you doing, Steve?” Tony looks horrified, his breath and heartbeat increasing. Steve can almost smell fear on him.

“What did I do?”

“Nothing.”

“Tony.”

“You were having a nightmare. I came to wake you up.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s it. Now, if your highness is okay, I’d like to leave.” Tony is struggling to get away from his grasp. “Okay, I don’t care. Right away.”

“Boss, should I call someone?”

“I hurt you.” He doesn’t know how.

“No, Friday.” They speak at the same time.

Steve sighs and looms in closer. Tony tries to lean away. “I am sorry.”

“You should be,” the shorter man replies testily.

“If- even if, I am having nightmares… as long as I am not destroying your property or harming anybody, please don’t try to … help me.”

Tony looks at him. “What about when you are harming yourself?”

“Am I?” Steve stares at Tony who looks away. “Even if I did, the serum will take care of it.”

“The serum is not a medicine.” He replies shortly.

“It has kept me alive.”

“What the f-” Steve squeezes his elbow. Tony shuts up.

“Thank you but don’t. The serum may have been perfected but it is getting old. I have been awake long enough now to start feeling all its effects.”

“What do you mean?” Tony looks at him from head to toe, worried, his panic momentarily forgotten. Why had Steve hurt him? Tony looks so precious in the moonlight. So vulnerable for someone so unreachable.

“I don’t know how to control … certain things. There is something dark…,” Steve halts, trying to explain what he means, “I don’t know, Tony and I don’t know if I can control it.”

“You don’t have to go through this alone.” His voice is soft, concerned. What would it be like to break this unbreakable man?

“No.” Steve shakes his head, trying to dispel the stupid thoughts. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I can look after myself.”

“You have to know you are safe in this house. You can’t start wearing the reactor at home too when you should be free of that fear in your own home. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“What will you have me do then?”

“Leave me alone.”

 

 

***

 

 

Tony plops onto the couch, his legs cramped from the long flight and headache from the long, drawn-out meeting at the Accords UN Council and thereafter, a tech conference in Madrid followed by a talk at Cambridge’s alumni summit. His veins are throbbing. They might burst anytime. He groans as he shuts his eyes and rests his head against the soft backrest.

“Here.” Tony opens his eyes. Steve is standing in front of him with a glass of cold water and tablet. “For that headache.” Steve places them next to him and backs away. Tony picks them up, wary. “I’m not trying to poison you.”

“Won’t put it past you,” Tony mumbles but swallows down the medicine with the water anyway. “Thank you.”

“You should rest. It must have been exhausting.” Tony lays down horizontally on the couch, his feet propped on the hand rest. “How did your assignment go?” He wiggles his toes. Tony is past those days where he had a knack for pointing out the elephant in the room. He puts an arm on his eyes but watches Steve go and settle on the bean bag, his journal in his hand. “You must be tired too.”

“The serum takes care of it.” Steve brushes it off and Tony frowns. Before he can argue, the Intruder alarm beeps for a second before it stops midway. They both sit up, alert. 

“Doctor Strange is waiting for you in the workshop, boss.”

Oh. Tony is relieved. He had set an alarm for any magic spell after running heat scans post Strange’s departure last week. He quickly stands up. “It is just Stephen,” Tony informs Steve who hasn’t moved the slightest after that.

“Okay.”

Tony dashes to his workshop. “Fry, keep scanning and check for any new heat signatures.”

“Already on it, boss.”

“Good girl.”

It takes him exactly four minutes to reach the lab. As he is entering, he hears Strange ask, “how much longer?”

“You had never been one for patience,” Tony quips. He shows up in the workshop, smirking, “good to see somethings haven’t changed.”

“Pot. Kettle. Etc..” Tony glimpses the creepy cloak playing peek-a-boo with Dummy. “Where is Peter?”

“Bold of you to assume that the kid is always with me. No ‘Hi’s or ‘Hello’s for me, Mandrake?”

“Isn’t he?” Strange in his wizard clothes and carefully brushed back hair looks the epitome of perfection. Huh. A beat later, he is frowning and Tony realises he genuinely thought Peter would be with him (which the kid is- in the compound but not necessarily _with him_ .)

“Friday, ask Peter to come down here.”

“What about the alien girl? Call her too.”

“Still bossy, I see. Very sexy.” Strange gives him a baleful look. “No? The girl has a name, by the way. Nebula. Fry, call her too.”

“Done.”

“You didn’t even ask why.” Strange is surprised. Hah!

“Sure. Tell me why.” Tony juts his hip against the table, crossing his arm over his chest. “Do go on.”

“This is why you are always in trouble.”

“Hush. You are wasting my precious time.”

“Are you not free?”

“For?”

“Do you have anything that you have to absolutely do today or tomorrow?”

“Not really?”

“Great. We are leaving then.”

Peter enters first. “To where?”

“I am not going anywhere with this man,” Nebula says.

Strange points at Tony and tells her, “He is coming with me.”

“Fine.” Tony simpers.

A portal opens next to the sorcerer. “If you have to inform anyone that you won’t be around for a while, do it right now. We don’t have much time.”

“Where exactly are we going?” The kids ask.

“Is there another apocalypse somewhere? For how long are we talking? I can’t exactly drop everything. I may not be the CEO anymore but I can’t just-”

Peter and Nebula are already stepping through the portal.

“Here, young man, not so fast,” Strange picks up the school bag and shoves it into Peter’s hand, “You don’t need to slack using this as an excuse.” Peter gives Tony a look and turns his back on them. “Also, your AIs might not work where we are going.” That raises Tony’s hackles. He doesn’t want to go through that again. Being stranded alone. “Trust me, Anthony. We’ll be back before you know it.”

“Oh, I do,” Tony always finds pleasure in throwing off Stephen Strange although he is not feeling that confident. Tony grins. “Hey Fri, can you tell Brucie and Rhodey to look after the compound. I won’t be around for a while.”

“Hopefully, just for the weekend.” Strange supplies.

“Just the weekend?” Tony makes a face, “And here I was hoping we were eloping to space and beyond. Way to break a man’s heart.” Strange smiles and it leaves a very funny feeling in Tony’s heart.

FRIDAY interrupts the moment. (They were having a moment?) “Boss, Colonel Rhodes is trying to reach you.”

“Tell him not to worry, Fry-fry. I am just going out for a date with my magical doctor.” Tony approaches Strange and links their arms to the other man’s surprise. “Aren’t you, Doc? Magical?” Strange snorts.

“Boss, what about King T’Challa?”

“He too is calling now? Damn. Tell him I’ll be out of network coverage area.” He recalls the talk he had had with Peter last week. Shit, he had forgotten to ask him. “I’ll call him myself next week.”

“What about me, Boss?” Strange impatiently tugs on his arm before he is pulling away and goes through the portal, leaving Tony behind. Tony quickly follows him. It is cold. It is fucking cold is the first thing he registers. “Boss, reception is pretty well here,” FRIDAY says smugly. She starts rattling off about the location. Peter and Nebula are chasing each other in the snow blizzard.

“We are going elsewhere.” Strange supplies oh so helpfully.

“Fry, tell the super soldier I am out on a date. Won’t be there and yada, yada.” Then, he turns her off without warning. He hears her Boss! but too late. 

“You shouldn’t have to need that.” Strange points at the glowing piece in his chest.

“It goes where I go.” Tony pats it. The ex-doctor nods his head and moves his hands with neat, exact movements and a new portal opens. “You are not kidnapping me, are you?” For all the confidence he shows, sometimes Tony wishes he could feel it too. It is not that illogical a leap. If Obadiah could get him kidnapped, anyone could. He doesn’t want Strange too to turn out like that. He has some handful of nice memories of his childhood with him. He doesn’t want them too to get tarnished.

“Children, we have to go.” Strange is in a hurry. He keeps glancing at his watch. Tony doesn’t want them to end wrong. Please, don’t fuck me up, instincts. His instincts trust Stephen Strange.

Nebula comes running and goes in through the portal first, always mapping out new territories, checking for traps and enemies. She is walking through the dark passage of- is it a factory? There is music blasting loudly from inside.

“Did you bring us to some rave party? An underground pub? Where is this-”

“Oh my god,” they hear Nebula gasp before she disappears from sight.

“What? What? What?” Peter drops his bag and he jumps into the portal.

“Peter!” Tony shouts but Strange stops him with a hand on his chest.

Someone appears at the end of the passage. “What is taking you plucky dudes so long?” Tony knows that voice. He hasn’t heard it in a year.

“Is that- oh my god, Mr Stark, it is-” Tony hastens towards the portal as he sees Peter fling himself onto the newcomer. “Starlord!”

“Hey, little dude, long time no see.” 

“Wow, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” 

 

“Go in, go in, Peter Number Two. Groot and Drax are waiting for you.” Tony is standing there, still on this side of the portal, astounded. Tony looks at Strange who looks at him expectantly and looks back at the magical hole in the atmosphere. Peter Quill comes closer to the portal. He puts his hands above his head, resting them somewhere on the other end of the portal and pokes his head out.

 

 

“Wanna run away to the stars with me, Tin Head?”


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Cause I've been shaking  
> I've been bending backwards till I'm broke  
> Watching all these dreams go up in smoke,
> 
> Let beauty come out of ashes"
> 
> \- **Ashes I Celine Dion**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Deadpool song is beautiful.
> 
>  
> 
> Trigger warnings for new tag?

“Wanna run away to the stars with me, Tin Head?”

 

Tony ‘yay’s and says with a mock swoon, “an outlaw after my heart.” Quill reaches out with his hand but then he immediately retracts it.

“Ow,” Quill glares at Gamora who has appeared next to him. “Why would you do that?”

“Are you flirting with him?”

“What, no! I was just welcoming Tony to our not-very humble abode.” Gamora whacks him on the head. “Hey!”

“Mr Stark, please get in. We need to leave as quick as possible.”

“It’s Tony for you too,” Tony smiles brightly at her but she only rolls her eyes, muttering ‘humans’ under her breath as she goes back. Tony picks up Peter’s bag from the snow-covered ground.

“Don’t mind her. We have to hurry though. We are parking at a jump point. I’d rather we not stay here longer than necessary.” He turns to Strange who has been silent during the entire exchange. “You sure you don’t wanna come with, Wiz?”

“You are leaving?” Tony asks him surprised, his smiling falling by like point five. He just hadn’t expected that.

“Maybe some other time, Star Lord.”

Quill shrugs. “Suit yourself. Hurry up, okay?” He points at Tony and Strange and then retraces his steps back into recesses of his spaceship.

“I thought we couldn’t establish contact with them?”

“There are ways…” Strange is all shifty eyes and uncomfortable. “The barrier of the wards are the thinnest here…” He looks to the side again. “I need to leave. Get in.”

Tony huffs. “What if I say no?” Strange literally pushes the older man through the portal. “What the f-ow!” He snatches his hand from the other’s grasp.

“You hurt your wrist?”

“Just banged it somewhere,” he says unhappily. More like a supersoldier twisted it but hey, can’t admit that.

“Let me see it,” Strange says taking Tony’s arms and he is muttering something as he runs his thumbs lightly against the inner side of his wrist. Tony sees the bruises disappear. Tony whistles,

“So you’re a Madam Pomfrey now.”

Strange squeezes his wrist and it hurts. “More like Professor Flitwick.”

Tony grins. “So only a glamour. Here I thought you could heal people.”

“Not now.” Strange steps back and out of the portal. “I really must go.”

“Thank you,” Tony says, lowering his head, softly.

“No, Stark,” Tony looks up, Strange’s cloak is bellowing in the wind, his hair ruffled and stands strong against the storm around him “if there is anybody who should thanking, it is the world. The world owes you.”

 

The portal shuts and Tony wonders how much more the sorcerer plans on surprising.  
When he finally joins the rest of the crew, they are hooting and clapping and as he takes further steps in, he realises, it is for him. They are shouting ‘saviour of the galaxy’, welcoming him. Drax and Mantis burst confetti over his head and Groot presents him with a twig. Gamora and Quill are standing side by side as they look at their crew like proud parents. Nebula is standing behind them, smiling and Peter is hanging upside down, grinning. Robert comes somersaulting over the seats.

“It is _so_ good to see you, my favourite human.”

“Hey! I am your favourite human,” Quill protests.

“You’re half human.” Rocket and Tony bump fists before Rocket and Quill settle into their pilot seats. “Are you ready for the best nights of your life, humans?!” Rocket shouts and everyone shouts with a resounding yes and Tony feels like he is home.

His home away from home. 

 

 

 

*

 

 

Most of the trip Peter is busy freaking out and wishing he had brought Ned along. (“You left your girlfriend behind, Little Spider?,” Drax asks. “What? No. He is a boy.” “Oh, you left your boyfriend behind then.” Peter splutters for a solid minute. Tony and Nebula can’t stop laughing.) They visit some of the planets nearby. Tony and Mantis almost get arrested in one of them. Almost because they escape. It had been extremely hilarious but it had made Peter panic so he tried not to venture out that much all by himself. Tony doesn’t miss out Nebula hovering around Mantis, smiling bashfully and awkwardly and Tony and Peter always make sure to pass them by and winking or showing thumbs up while Mantis isn’t looking. Sometimes Peter will sing and won’t move away, standing next to the girls till Tony drags him away physically. (Mantis thankfully doesn’t touch Tony at any point perhaps to avoid the incident that had happened right after they had saved the world together. They had accidentally brushed hands and she had looked at him and then had erupted into tears. Yeah, he doesn’t want that again especially, since he now knows what Mantis’s powers are.)

 

Their trip is ending. (Quill explained that Strange had approached them, suddenly appearing in their spaceship, demanding to take the Starks out for the weekend and because everyone loved the father and son duo, they were more than happy to acquiesce. The Starks comment led to Peter trying to clarify that they weren’t related which led Drax to launch into a lecture on how families didn’t end in blood and explaining how Groot was all the Guardians’ child and they are a family and so are the Starks.)

“Can I talk to you, Anthony?” 

“Of course, Nebula.” They go to the back of the spaceship and sit down, crossed legs. “What happened?”

“I wanted to tell you something.”

“Of course.”

She looks away and takes a deep breath and begins, “When I was with Thanos, all I had known was wanting- wanting love, wanting to be free, wanting to be freed from the pain. I used to think that Fathers meant someone who brought pain to you. Someone cruel and .. twisted. Each time he took a part of my body, he took away my confidence of ever finding a chance of peace and love.” Tony squeezes her shoulder. “Then, I grew up and he sent me on missions. As we slaughtered beings after beings, families after families, I glimpsed what a family could also mean. That it isn’t always pain and torture and competition for affection but … love and care. We had been taught we could die for someone we love, for loyalty but I first time saw how people wanted to _live_ for someone they loved. The more I understood about love, the more hate filled me.” Nebula exhales and turns her head and smiles at Tony. “Then, I met you. You showed me that a being like _me_ could be accepted. Could be loved. Could have a family, love and support. Have a home with no conditions.” Tony grasps her hand and Nebula tightens the grip hard. “You showed - proved to me that family doesn’t always mean pain. That I could also be happy somewhere.” Nebula’s eyes are swimming in tears. “You have been a better father than the man who raised me, you have given me a family in the past year which I couldn’t have my entire life.” Tony is crying too. “Thank you. For showing me I could be better.” Tony draws her into a tight hug. “Why- why are you crying? Should I- should I not have said that?”

“No. I am- I am happy. These are tears of happiness, Nebz.”

“Oh.” They hold each other till they both finish crying. “Thank you for letting me be a part of your and Peter’s life.”

“You’ll always be a part of it.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ .”

“Also..”

“Hmmm?”

“I won’t be going back with you and Peter.” Tony’s head shoots up so fast, he gets a whiplash. “I’ll come back later but I have to go to my planet. See what became of it.”

“You mean your home before Thanos took you?”

“Yes. I have often found myself thinking of it. Before I can come back to earth and come home, I need to have a ..”

“Closure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Tony says encouragingly, “do that. Then come home.”

Nebula looks so thankful and grateful to Tony that it breaks his heart. She shouldn’t have to. It is her right and yet. They sit silently, holding onto the nearest rods for support as the ship starts flashing lights in warning as they crash land. “I have one more thing to ask you.”

“Shoot.” (It is a testament to how much Nebula has undergone change because the first time Tony had said ‘shoot’ as in ‘go ahead’ Nebula had just taken out a gun and had shot at him. She only smirks now, probably remembering the same memory)

“When I come back home, can I .. can I call you my father?” Nebula looks guilty, hopeful and as Tony remains silent in shock, she looks like she’ll be sick, panic written clear on her face.

Tony shakes his head out of the stupor. “I’d be lucky if you do.”

Her smile is blinding.

 

 

*

 

 

They stop for refuelling at Vensteinheim. Peter and Tony leave with Quill after saying goodbye to the Guardians (Peter denies he cried when he heard Nebula is going to stay back) who ushers them towards the back of the station.

“He should be here any moment now.” Quill is squinting into the dense forest that lies ahead.

“Who? Doctor Strange?” Peter asks.

“Yeah, the wizard had said this would be your pick up point. Hopefully, we didn’t mess it up.”

“Hey, what is that-” Peter says as he turns around, looking confused when the familiar crackling noise starts and a portal opens. “Hey, Doctor Strange!”

Doctor Strange strides in, his posture straight and filled with confidence like he always is. “Thank you, Star Lord.”

“Always happy to give friends a ride.” Quill winks at Tony who laughs. Tony side hugs him. “Bye, bye, Petey Two.”

“Bye, Star Lord,” Peter’s eyes are a little glossy. “I don’t want to go back.” He pouts as he says sulking. Quill ruffles his hair.

“Awww.. Don’t be like that, Little Dude, I’ll be forced to kidnap you then. I really don’t want to be imprisoned again.”

“Can we make this quick?” Strange says tersely. “After you.” He sweeps a hand in the air, pointing it towards the portal. His cloak leaves his shoulder, wraps it around Peter’s hand and drags him through the portal.

“Where are the things you promised?”

Strange conjures an entire bag out of thin air and hands it to the Guardian. “Here.”

“Thank you.”

“What is it?” Quill winks at him and leaves sprinting. “What was it?” Tony asks the doctor who chooses to step into the portal instead. “C’mmon, tell me. Quill said you asked him to take us for the trip.” Tony follows him.

“So?”

Peter is struggling with the Cloak. Strange sighs and moves his hands about and another portal opens. "Peter, let’s go.” Peter doesn’t have to reply because the Cloak takes him through the portal swiftly. “So, why?", Tony continues, "Are you guys smuggling something? Guardians are technically an outcast. Won’t put it past them.” Strange gives him an annoyed look.

“The Star Lord had wanted some clothes and iPod and some history books in exchange.” Tony gasps loudly and halts. “What?” 

“You didn’t give him StarkTech?!” Strange rolls his eyes. 

“Aunt May!” Tony hears Peter gasp this time and Tony hurries through the portal. The portal has opened to the Parkers’ kitchen where Peter is sprawled on the floor, still struggling with the Cloak and two very surprised ladies. Tony is definitely the one more surprised at finding Pepper there with May Parker.

The portal behind them shuts and yet another one opens. “Home.” Strange says.

“Mr Stark, Doctor Strange help me!”

“She’ll leave you if stop trying to move.” Tony can hear the eye rolling in his voice. Strange doesn’t wait this time as he disappears through the portal.

“Bye, bye ladies! Bye, Pete.” The portal has opened in the garden of the Avengers Compound.

" What about your Cloak?"

"She will find her way." Strange takes a step to the side. “You know your way from here.”

“I do.” Tony hasn’t come to the garden in a long time. He doesn’t know who tends to the plants. He has come back home and yet it feels nothing like it. He flicks back the switch on and FRIDAY’s ‘welcome back, boss’ fills his ears as the suit covers every inch of his skin.

“Anthony?”  
“Hmmm?”

“Are you okay?”

“Always.”

“Goodnight then.”

“Hmmm.” He doesn’t hear another portal opening, not until a minute after. “What’s the delay?” Tony asks as he continues to stare at the empty compound. Steve must still be away on a mission. Rhodey and Bruce must have left for work.

“You don’t look fine.”

“Does Doc Strange care?” He says challengingly.

Strange in classic Stephen Strange fashion doesn’t reply. He opens a portal and leaves.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony can’t stop seeing Steve looking for Barnes in the Wakandan envoy. Not once he remembers such longing being directed. For all these years when Steve had been the subject of his ire, teasing, emotions, not even once he had looked at Tony as the the latter had wanted. There had been exasperation, irritation, confusion, amusement but never with anything remotely that was adoration. Let alone any other positive emotions. When Tony flirted at him, Steve had often looked at him with his lips pressed together, trying not to laugh, his eyes would crinkle. Sometimes, he would throw his head back, his body shaking with belly full of laughter because Tony had said something funny. Those nights, Tony had felt a little closer to the unattainable man, patting himself on the shoulder for having succeeded. However, they had always done the two-step forwards-two step backwards dance but never further. Steve living up to his Cap image, Tony letting him down, then, Steve letting him down and afterwards, both patching their fraying relationship. Tony never progressed beyond that. As the rehabilitating Barnes steps out from behind the Dora Milaje, Tony can’t help but glance at Steve who gets up from his seat as the entourage walk towards the gallery seats, his eyes wide and wistful. The ex-assassin takes his seat at the defender’s seat, his head lowered, his hair covering his face partially, he is surrounded by armed military next to him. Rhodey forces Steve to sit down and Tony looks back at Barnes, trying to figure out the secret the man held who could make Captain America dance to his tune. Tony barely focuses on the proceedings. He just understands that the King of Wakanda is vouching for the ex-assassin, ex-celebrated war veteran. Bucky Barnes perhaps doesn’t know the power he has over the most public figure of United States. Barnes sits with his head lowered throughout, looking up only when he answers. The Accords-UN Council pardons Barnes and puts him on probation under the jurisdiction of the monarchy of King T’Challa. Steve is barely restraining himself from the seat. His eyes- his eyes are so full of love (he didn’t have to _say_ it on the terrace that night for Tony) and adoration which Tony had wanted for himself and it finally dawns on him why he had never existed or anyone else for that matter for Steven Rogers because the man had been in love with someone all along and Captain Rogers never did anything without his burning passion. As Barnes leaves the hall with some of the Dora Milaje, Steve looks so crestfallen. Barnes never stops to look back at Steve. Tony’s ex-best friend looks so _heartbroken_ that Tony has to look away. Tony’s chest hasn’t felt this compressed in a while. His heart hurts and maybe, today, Steve Rogers, the hero of his childhood, the man of his dreams is truly breaking his heart. 

 

*

 

Tony is already tipsy by the time he reaches his workshop. He pulls the chair closer and uses its backrest to help himself sit down.

Nebula’s words, Steve’s expressions haunt him. They go in circles and his head and chest hurt as much as his heart. He remembers Nebula’s face the first time she had asked him if he could just check her arm. They had been about to go face to face with Thanos and he had understood why she had come to him. It had been a necessity but when they won and the world was restored, she had come yet again, always asking hesitatingly and pained. Like she didn’t want to but had to. It took several weeks for Tony to figure out it hadn’t been him but her memories of torture that had made her wary and uncomfortable. That after everything they had both been through, Nebula believes Tony had given her a home, a family to call her own and let her experience for herself what unconditional love and healthy familial bonding could look like. For Nebula to say that by herself to him had been a proud moment for him; her seeing him as her father figure had been surreal. It hadn’t sunk in. Then, she chose to stay back and maybe, she is coming back. It’d take a while but she’d be back, it still hurts Tony. Tony can never trust himself for his own self. He knows he would be a shit parent and yet someone, someone thought that he isn’t a bad parent. Steve may never love him. Howard may have never loved him but there is someone out there in the universe who doesn’t think he is such a bad person; that there is someone out there Tony has been able to make a good difference to, thinks he is responsible enough.

He can’t stop thinking about his and Nebula’s similar history. Tony just doesn’t have the physical scars to show but they are there. Howard replaced him bit by bit, his heart, his nature. He had made Anthony the kind, polite, respectful, playful boy whom Edwin Jarvis had raised into the unapologetic, egocentric, eccentric flamboyant asshole the world recognised as Tony Stark.

Would Jarvis be proud if he had heard what Nebula had to say about him?

Would he have been proud that Tony had saved the world?

Would he have been proud of his Master Stark?

Tony slides down his chair, his hands pressed to his temples, as his fingers tangle his hair as he tries to block out the images of vast, deserted sandy landscapes from his head. He crawls under his table, trying to control his breathing. He is sweating profusely, his heart rate crazy, his chest constricting.

_You are my biggest creation_

His father had said. Tony had only ever been a creation. Nothing more. He had never been a person to Howard. Tony can’t stop the tears. He desperately tries to wipe them away but they keep flowing. His vision blurs and Tony gasps through his sobs. Why the fuck can’t he get a grip over himself? He is old enough for fuck’s sake. He should be able to handle this.

“Boss? Boss, what can I do for you?”

“Not-nothing.”

JARVIS wouldn’t have had to ask him. JARVIS would have known exactly what to do. Tony tries to count numbers in his head but he keeps jumbling them. He starts counting loudly on his fingers. “1.. 2.. 3” His voice is shaky and despicable. He is despicable.

“Boss, can I call Colonel Rhodes?”

“No!”

“Boss, please tell me what to do.”

Stephen Strange of all people had thanked him for saving the world. Pepper and Rhodey had been angry and worried but nothing else. Strange had thanked him and Tony still doesn’t know what to do with it. He isn’t used to being thanked. Peter says ‘thank you’ to him all the time but their youngest Avenger doesn’t know what is good for him. That is why he is always around Tony. 

“Boss?”

Dummy comes whirring and pokes at Tony with his metal limb. Tony breathes deeply and exhales. “Hey Dummy, my crazy son, don’t worry about dad, okay?” He pats the cold metal body. “Daddy’s fine. It’s alright” 

 

 _I don’t feel so good, Mr Stark_ Tony grabs the blunt end of DUM-e’s hand.

 _It’s alright_ Tony remembers saying and then Peter had collapsed into his arms.

“Boss, please tell me what to do. I am so sorry. I know Jarvis was better for you. I am sorry.” When had he taught his AIs to be guilty too?

 _I am sorry, Mr Stark_ Peter had disintegrated in front of him. Tony snatches his hand back and DUM-e beeps repeatedly, distressed.

Tony is not going to make his bot children worry. “Friday?”

“Boss?”

“Where is Steve?”

“Captain Rogers is… indisposed at the moment.” Steve is having nightmares too then. 

Tony withdraws further under the table. DUM-e’s consistent whirring and beeping somehow helps. Tony isn’t alone. He has his bot children, an alien child somewhere out in the space, he has his friends there. He has Pepper and Rhodey on this planet. He will be fine. He will be fine he tries to remind himself. He draws his knees closer as he rests his head against the wooden leg and presses a hand against his chest. He’ll be fine. He is Tony Stark. He is the amazing Avenger whom children love. He is also now a proud parent of a very blue psychopathic alien and he knows things will get better. They have to.

 

He closes his eyes and listens to the song FRIDAY has started playing. She is learning. She is _trying_ and that’s what matters the most to Tony. Even if he maybe huddled in a corner under the table and having a panic attack, he knows he’ll get better. He always has. He just has to wait it out. Tony sniffles and wipes away the tears and snot with his sleeve. He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. He is Iron Man.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Tony barely sleeps. As soon as it is dawn, he crawls out from under the table and gets up on unsteady legs. He takes a shower, brushes his teeth, puts on a fresh pair of clothes. He picks his aviators on the way and shoots up into the sky from the balcony he knows where to go.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Tony enters the spooky, abandoned building. He looks about the place for the nth time. There are dust and cobwebs everywhere. The grand staircase remains unrepaired, broken where Hulk had crashed through. Tony ambles around for a while before he finds his favourite spot. It is the table near to the kitchen or what Tony thinks would have been a kitchen. He has no way of knowing. There is nothing in the deserted building except for a few couches, books, vases and few barely-hanging-on chandeliers. Tony draws the chair and sits down. This has been his place in the past one year, his secret haven, his go-to place to calm down. The resounding silence soothes his nerves. As if there is still some magic left in the air. He can sometimes feel it hum in the air. He feels safe.

Tony should have been scared of magic.

Instead, he feels safe.

 

Tony doesn’t want to go back to the Compound now. Peter won’t be back for another week since he has finals. It has been two weeks since they had come back from the space trip. The rush, the happiness had lasted for so long. His mood had gone plummeting and then the Accords session happened and it hit an all-time low. Tony wonders what it would have been like to have been on the receiving end of Steve’s affection. Why is the world so cruel to them? Steve loves a man who doesn’t _see_ him even when he sees him and Steve won’t ever look at Tony. Tony knows what being wanted feels like. He had just wanted a little love.

 

Maybe love is really, really not meant for him.

 

Look at his new child. Nebula had called her dad and then had left. That is his life.

 

Tony sighs. Sometimes he just wants to get away from everything. He puts his hands on the table and lowers his head on them. He is a little drowsy. He’ll sleep for a while.

 

 

Just a bit.

 

Just a bit

 

 

Just a bit…

 

 

 

“What are you doing here?” A very loud and annoying voice demands and Tony jerks up and back, his hand raised and fires the repulsor in reflex. Strange deflects it. The chair Tony had been sitting on skeeters and falls. He flinches.

“What are _you_ doing here?”

“This place isn’t safe. You are open to attack here.”

“Who is attacking?” Tony asks, his repulsors whir getting ready to blast potential attackers.

“No one.”

Tony quirks an eyebrow. He sees Wong standing near the grand staircase, inspecting something. “Hey, Wong!”

“Hello, Mr Stark.”

Strange harrumphs. “You are wasting my time here. You should go back to the compound. Aren’t you supposed to be busy?”

“I just missed our Ben & Jerry dates.” Tony points at Wong and then himself. Strange looks at Wong as if betrayed who turns away, looking busy inspecting whatever that he is inspecting. “Besides, Harry Potter, you are going to tell me how you knew about Peter’s workshop.” Wong is frowning. Definitely paying attention then. “Are you spying on us?”

Strange stands erect, his hands behind his back. “Go home.”

It is the tone with which he says it. Like it is an order, a command. Like, hell will Tony put up with that attitude. Not from anyone. Not anymore. Tony hisses and takes off his aviators, ready to show Strange exactly what mistake he made by showing Tony Stark that attitude. He is going to tear him apart with Tony Stark Verbal SmackDown but he realises his own mistake a beat late. Strange sees the puffy, red eyes of his. It is unmistakable but as eyes of someone who spent his entire night crying. Tony stares at him, daring him to say anything, gearing up for a fight, ready to hit at the first sign of pity or anything like that. Strange’s face is just blank and then, he is turning around and leaves with his typical strong, powerful strides. Tony releases the breath he had been holding. He picks up the fallen chair and sinks in it. His head is still throbbing. He clutches his head, tired. He just wants some sleep. Some rest.

 

“Here,”

Tony looks up. It is a deja vu. The tall man is placing a tiny white cup in front of him. It is just not the same Steven.

“What is this?” Tony eyes the dark broth warily.

“Tea.”

“Tea?” He looks up, surprised.

“It helps with headache.”

Tony bristles. “What makes you think I need it?”

“I am a doctor, remember? Magical one.” Strange smiles, his eyes twinkling with smugness and Tony can’t help but laugh.

“Got myself into that one, didn’t I?”

Tony sips the tea and hums. It is nice. “This concoction is-” He starts, looking up but Strange and Wong are gone. “magical,” he says softly. As he finishes his drink, he finds his headache slowly dissipating and he wonders if the drink had truly been ‘just tea’.

 

Several minutes later, Tony is falling asleep again.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Tony is being shaken. He opens his eyes blearily. Why is Rhodey disturbing him? He should know better.

“Let me sleep!” He whines. Go away.

“You should have gone home, Tony.” 

“I just want to sleep.” His voice is muffled against his arms. 

“Mordo is still on the loose. He isn’t safe here.” A different type of voice says.

Tony hears a sigh. “You should have gone home.” Then, Rhodey is putting a hand around his shoulder and he is being pulled up and then he is being pulled _up_ and Tony opens his eyes and sees someone who is not Rhodey and thinks he is imagining it. Hangover. Hangover. Then, he is being lowered onto something really soft that smells amazing and Tony rolls on the bed, making happy noises. 

“Love you, Rhodey bear.”

There is no reply. Tony is falling back to sleep. Rhodey must have left.

“It is Strange.”

 

Tony sinks his head into the soft pillow. 

 

 

 

Tony’s last thought before sinking under is why it is strange to love Rhodey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much everyone for the kudos, comments and bookmarks! :D


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You know I fall really, really deep, yeah  
> You can put your lovin' where I speak, yeah"
> 
> \- **Belong To You I Sabrina Claudio**

_Tony tries to hold him but he keeps slipping away. Jarvis is young and alive. He is **alive** . It doesn’t matter if he himself is of a smaller size, legs way too shorter as he is kicking against the chair. _

_Tony presses the pillow, it folding into half under pressure to his face and he whimpers in pain._

_Jarvis is on the floor, next to him, bleeding but smiling._

_“I am proud of you, Master Stark.” He is smiling, one hand trying to pet young Tony’s head and blood gurgles from his mouth. Tony clutches, unable to take the full weight and bends over, holding his guardian’s one hand pressed against his face._

_“I am so sorry, Jarvis. I am so sorry.”_

_“It is alright, Master Stark… You are safe.”_

 

 

Tony opens his eyes, trying to blink away Yinsen’s face merging with Jarvis’s away. He hadn’t dreamed of Jarvis in a while. Then the ceiling comes into view and it is definitely not the Compound he is in. Tony sits up with a jerk. He has all clothes on but not the ones he had - he blinks his eyes rapidly, confused, a sated and content feeling in his bones as if he had been well rested but he can’t recall what had happened. He easily gets off the bed- so not imprisoned here? Had always made sure he brought people back to his place and not the other way around and no one definitely dressed him when he was sleeping. He racks his brain hard (surprise!) as he takes in the minimalist ‘decoration’ of the small room. Just a bed (with the fluffiest pillows and best mattress- at least according to his back), a table placed next to a window with a few books on it, an incense stick burning away next to it. His clothes are neatly stacked on the desk, his watch and aviators on them. He takes note of his very white but soft cotton and remembers wearing something similar in India during a tycoon’s wedding (and having had the fortune of finding Wi-fi in the open location otherwise Peter- ). Is he in India? He walks bare feet on the cold hard floor and tries to open the window. Seriously, what happened? He recalls leaving for NYC to the Sanctorum and- _oh_ . He lifts his clothes and checks the titles of the books. He doesn’t recognise them beyond that they look Sanskrit but perhaps the Vedic form of it and places them back. How has he-

Stephen and Wong.

They had - Strange had given him tea. Had he been drugged? By Stephen Strange?

There is only one way he can find out. Tony drops the clothes back on the books and storms to the door and pulls the door open with force, ready to charge and demand but he gets swaddled with a face full of red, then a hasty doctor turned Sorcerer appears, pushes him inside. It is so sudden, his cognitive faculties still trying to drive the cobwebs of sleep away that he is finds himself slipping and falling and he is _falling_ and lands with a thud on a stairway and it hurts his butt and back and goddammit, he is too old for this. He stands back up quickly as Strange steps through the portal, calm and collected. His coiffed hair makes fun of Tony’s harried state or he thinks.

“Care to explain?” He isn’t going to lash out till he has heard reasons. Good enough, right? He is giving him a chance instead of clocking him which Tony really wants to do. He can make out the muscle ticking in Strange’s jaw. Is he even going to get an answer? Given Strange’s reputation he is going to be caustic and then Tony is going to let the feigned calmness go and is going to teaching the man a lesson.

“You were still here when I expressly told you to leave.”

Rhodey bear. It is coming back to him. “That was you?” Tony’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline. Since when had this man become nice and kind because he remembers now being moved from the chair to the bed and he had naturally assumed it was Rhodey because Peter wouldn’t dare and others couldn’t. Steve could but he keeps his hands away from Tony now after the genius engineer made it clear he wanted the old paws nowhere him now. He can’t picture Strange trying to - Tony shakes his head at the image.

“I’ll leave once you answer my question- questions actually.” Strange puts his hand back, his cloak fluttering behind him. “First, where were we? Two, why am I in these clothes? _Who_ put me in these clothes?” He didn’t want to be touched by a stranger while unconscious, he has had enough creeps in his life and smirks to not let the shudder that runs through him be that prominent, “did said person and I get frisky? You wouldn’t know, would you?” Tony smiles slyly, “unless… it was you?”

“Those are too many questions.” Strange snaps his fingers and Tony is back in his clothes, in the ones he had left. 

“Oh, wow.” Tony whistles, “you are a real wizard, huh?” 

“And you are a squib,” Strange retorts. The Cloak slaps Tony’s hand. 

“Hey! Keep your pet off me.” 

“That’s not my pet. It is a sentient-” 

Tony tuts. “No, no changing subjects. Where was I?” Stephen sighs loudly as if conversing with Tony is taxing and yeah, Tony gets it, however, he can’t let it go till he has some answers. 

“Somewhere safe. Now,” Stephen points at the main door. “You know your way out.” 

Tony rubs his back gingerly as he moves closer to the bannister and leans against it. “My answers first.” He taps his left foot on the stairs. 

Wong walks out of the portal. “Stephen, Kamar-Taj had a-”, he notices Tony and stops. 

“Hey, Dumbledore. Come to collect your Potter apprentice here?” Tony waves at him cheerfully. 

_“Hello, Tony,” Wong says courteously but rolls his eyes. Why is everyone rolling their eyes at Tony?_

__

__

“Just the man I was looking for.” Tony turns to Strange and says, “see? This is how you should be. ‘Hello, Stark’ instead of just randomly manhandling me through portals.” Strange looks a little chagrined. Good. “I mean I know, people can’t resist me.” Tony leers at him, rubbing a hand down his chest. 

“What is going on, Stephen?” Wong asks the tall doctor. 

“Just asking him to leave.” Strange glares at him. Tony shrugs. 

“Answer my questions and I’ll be out of your hair.” Seriously, the more stubborn Strange is going to be out of this, the more Tony is going to pester him. Doesn’t he know that? Everyone knows that. 

“What questions?” 

“You know, how you know about Aragog’s Nest?” Wong looks at him, a little puzzled. 

“Aragog’s nest? What is that?” 

It had just been a hunch. Strange gives Wong a glimpse, something a little like panic (Fear?) on his face and looks away quickly. 

“Something we are,” Tony deliberately pauses waiting for something and finds Strange look at him, with very, very slightly wide eyes before his expression is schooled again, giving nothing away. Hmmm. So, Wong doesn’t know - either that Peter’s lab is called that (which curiously only Tony used and no one else) or, anything at all. Interesting. 

“You are?” 

“Still looking into.” 

Wong shakes his head, muttering his breath and walks around the staircase, Strange fidgeting in his whole silent and still demeanour that only he could manage and Tony wonders why he still remembers all this. They hadn’t even met in more than a decade. 

“Wong?” 

“What.” 

“I thought you guys abandoned this place.” He stares at the doctor who stands in front of him resolutely but addresses to the third man in the hall. 

“We have.” 

“Clearly not.” 

Strange chooses to reply instead. “It is interspersed with old magic so sorcerers return to it sometimes.” 

“What, to rejuice themselves?” 

Wong comes back with a set of books in his hand that Tony hadn’t found when he had been inspecting the place. Odd. “Magic such as this, long borne from Agamotto is what only a foolish sorcerer would choose to ignore.” 

“Or, abandon.” 

“Yeah, but I see none of you Merlins running about this place.” He tacks on quickly, “Mostly.” 

“Maybe we just don’t cross paths.” 

“So- is this still your Sancto Sanctorum or you moved elsewhere? Because I know you had one more in Hong Kong- not that hard to find (they look surprised. Honestly, there are still people in this world who underestimate him), so, you must have another one too. Probably. This is Tony Stark you’re talking to. It is my job to find things out.” 

“If you say so,” Strange deadpans. 

Tony glares at him but continues, “but you weren’t there either. Considering it is a national library now and none of your mojo belongings where in that place. Just like here but at least, something now while this is… abandoned. So where do you guys stay?” Tony points at Wong, “I know you are still at Kamar-Taj,” (Strange looks _really_ surprised at that) but you?” 

Strange turns to Wong, “You told him?” 

“We needed help. There were not too many people.” (Strange winces.) 

“Okay, what’s your deal? Wong and I are friends, right Wongalore?” Said man only huffs. “He and I fought together- side by side and he attended my wedding just like I had promised to invite him and fyi, I have even been to your Kamar Taj Secret Society.” Now that he thinks about it, the room earlier could have easily been one of the living quarters of the Wizard Headquarters. “So, you can just zip it and let-” 

“You are married?” Strange looks shocked and Tony feels a little affronted that him being married could bring out such a reaction (and let everything he had said after that shadowed). But, Tony isn’t married. No thanks to himself. He sighs. 

“No,” Wong looks sorry and Strange’s eyebrows furrow in a funny way and his Cloak decided to have had enough on his shoulders and takes off for who knows where. 

“You just said-” his frown gets deeper and he asks slowly, “She left you?” 

Huh? “No.” 

Strange takes his phone out of his wizard tunic (Tony can’t locate the pocket) and is furiously typing away. “You really had a wedding.” StarkTech, ah ha! Tony looks around. When did Wong leave? 

“Yup.” 

Tony can see him Google-ing away and it makes Tony really really curious. Strange had always been a Know It All, taking pride in being abreast with all possible information and here he is, a little behind on the Potts-Stark Wedding Disaster and looking downright horrified like it is some big deal to miss it. Well, it had been considering it had been a Stark thing with only half the world’s population and people had been tuning in for some love and celebration even if it had just been on screen. Some hope in such despair. 

Strange doesn’t live on the American soil, he surmises. Even after… coming back, he should have found out. People still haven’t shut up about it. Tony Stark abandoning his bride at the altar. 

Strange is still focused on the screen and Tony notices two things. As Strange slightly bends over the screen, the collar of his blue tunic shifts which makes more of his skin visible and there are welts like scorched marks running across it. He can’t recall if he had seen them the night before. They look fresh, not having begun to heal. Tony climbs down rest of the stairs fast and plucks the phone from the taller man’s hand. Strange startles. 

“This is mine.” The sorcerer smiles, smug. “Use your own.” 

“Don’t have any.” He shrugs and Tony is sure his expression is one just like Peter’s, eyes wide and - 

“You’re not living in Stone Age, you know? Or, do you jump back to the Neanderthals time? Is it why you can’t be found? Because you time travel?” 

“Haven’t you learned anything from what just happened? You cannot mess with the natural laws.” 

Strange’s expression sours and he is walking away from the staircase towards the door and Tony hurries after. 

“Where do you keep leaving to then?” 

“Why do even care?” 

“I don’t.” 

“Good.” 

Strange’s hand is close to the doorknob. “Wait!” His hand hovers over the knob with slight trembling. Tony is noticing it this close for the first time. He can’t imagine what the accident might have been like, damaging the very thing Strange had prided on. Had anyone been there for Strange as Rhodey and Pepper had been for him? Strange too is an orphan after all and with social skills just as bad as Tony’s. 

“Yes?” He asks, impatiently. 

Probably worse. 

“Here,” Tony says softly and grabs the man by his collar and pulls him down. 

“What- what-” Tony feels sympathy for anybody who might try to kiss this idiot man (not that Tony plans on doing so) who is squirming, spluttering, hands trying to push Tony away. Tony just grips him tight, charging on his armour slightly and places his hand against the younger man’s neck and directs the nanoparticles spray at the gashes. Stephen flinches at the cold, biting spray and turns his head away, giving Tony better access to the injured patch of skin. When the angry welts turn to faint lines, Tony drops his hands away and steps back. Strange stares at Tony. They keep staring at each other. Stephen even raises his left hand, reaching out to Tony, an odd expression on his face. He looks at Tony like he is a puzzle, grateful, or something before his hand is falling away, his slightly parted mouth falling shut, a determined look on his face and the fragile air around them he knows will now slip away as Strange swivels around, opens the door and shuts it behind him. Tony sticks his leg in, not letting the huge door completely shut on his face and looks out but Strange is gone. Again. 

*** 

“What you up to, Pete?” 

Peter looks up from his suit turned inside out on his lab table, FRIDAY’s voice fading away as he enters. He rubs his nape with his left hand and, is holding a screwdriver in the other hand, “ Ms Day’s givin’ me some cheat notes on Karen’s programme.” 

“Ms Day” Tony echoes. 

“Yes, Boss,” FRIDAY pipes in, “Master Peter said he wanted help with Karen. Wanted to lessen your burden and working on Karen by himself.” Peter’s face starts turning a nice shade of tomato. “If such a need arises.” 

All Tony registers from it is “Master Peter”. 

“I just wanted to- In case of emergence- Ned might need something so, if I learn first I could or, maybe,” Peter takes a pause, “I didn’t want to increase your workload and I have messed up some of the subroutines.” 

Focus Tony. He clears his throat. “Your safety isn’t a ‘workload’. That is priority.” Peter smiles and looks down shy, as if still not used to Tony’s need to protecting him; as if he doesn’t still know how much Tony prioritizes him. “However, if you want to learn, I can always teach you.” 

“You will?” Peter sits up straight, his eyes big and hopeful. Tony sighs mentally. Tony seems to not have made it clear to the kid how much Tony will do for him. 

“I thought you were interested in Biochem? Isn’t that more of your thing?” 

“I just want to learn for emergency situations. Might come in handy.” 

“Fair enough.” Tony points his forefinger at him. “But try to-” 

“Avoid such situations,” Peter completes his sentence for him, grinning. “I will, Mr Stark. Now I have to get back to my work. Ms Day?” Peter calls FRIDAY, pulling the laptop kept next to the suit closer, “let’s continue, shall we?” 

“Of course, Master Peter.” 

Tony finds it very funny, the warm sensation in his chest hearing the ‘Master Peter’. Tony watches one of his creation help Peter, his “Protege” work on Karen, another one of his creations as Butterfingers “hands” Peter a glass of orange juice. Tony sits down next to him, going through his emails on his phone and occasionally, giving his own input but mostly waiting till Peter asked him. It is absurd how he has nothing to do with Peter’s brilliance and intelligence and yet he still feels proud seeing the boy bloom under his care. The actual credits go to May and Ben Parker and obviously, to Peter himself. 

“Peter?” 

“Hmm?” Peter is focused, trying to figure out the new subroutines Tony had put just a few weeks back while debugging Karen. Tony smiles. Sometimes, Peter makes him feel like he hadn’t completely failed in life. 

“Want to go out for dinner?” 

Peter’s eyebrows furrow but he doesn’t look away from the screen. “No takeouts?” 

“We can ask Aunt May to join us.” 

Peter looks up sharply, “Why?” 

“She’s your aunt and you have been here for the last five days.” 

“Because I have holidays now, Mr Stark.” Peter puts the screwdriver down and asks slowly, “do you… want me to go home?” 

“Nope,” Tony says easily. “She’s family.” She is the reason I didn’t die when you weren’t here. The least I could is not take away her only family from her constantly or for so long. Tony knows what that is like. Howard used to constantly send him far, far away from Jarvis. 

“Mr Stark?” 

“Hmm?” The screen of his phone is too bright, the letters a little blurred. 

“Are you alright?” 

Tony forces himself to look up from the screen and put a hand on the shoulder of the young man. “Yes,” and adds as an afterthought, “thank you.” Peter is worried but he chooses to hug instead than say aloud what they both know. Tony isn’t alright. He hasn’t been in a long time. He can’t even recall what it was like. 

Peter pulls back from the hug and sits back in his chair. “When are we going? Now?” 

“Call her first and inform. Where do you wanna go?” 

“Do you want to go to our favourite restaurant? It is Thai. Aunt May loves the larbs over there.” 

“Sure.” Tony stands up, stretching his hands. “What do you wanna eat there?" 

“Really?” Again. Surprise at Tony agreeing. “And, I like the pad thai and tom yum soup. They are delicious.” 

They leave an hour later for Prchaya Thai on 21 Street, Queen and Tony finds himself listening raptly to Peter’s Delmar story with a lot of gesticulation (not very unlike his own when he is excited about something) when he had stopped a group of ATM robbers and had ended up semi blasting Deli-cious Delmar store and his aunt watching him fondly. Tony had put on his Iron Man suit and had picked Peter up and shot to Peter's apartment. Aunt May, on finding out, had rolled her eyes and had driven them in the car from their home to the restaurant. Tony also meets Peter’s best friends who had stopped by at the restaurant when they heard he had come back to the neighbourhood. Ned doesn’t give Tony the starstruck look for too long and the Michelle girl never actually gives him a second glance. Tony is satisfied with his best friends. After they have one too many plates of larb and a few glasses of Singha, Tony remembers. Each time Peter looks up after furiously whispering something with Ned, Tony smirks and wiggles his eyebrows. Peter looks at him in confusion at first. When Peter and Ned knock their heads together accidentally and Peter quickly assures the boy he is fine and brushes his fingers on the other’s forehead to check for injuries because Peter may have hurt him, Tony snorts. Finally, the poor boy catches up with what Tony was insinuating and why the older man is hiding behind his beer glass and smirking. To both the men’s surprise, Aunt May snickers too as she too has caught up with it and looks like she shares a similar opinion on the subject. Peter flushes like a bright tomato and looks like he’d prefer being swallowed by the ground because just then his but very oblivious Guy-In-The-Chair slings his hand on the backrest of Peter’s chair. Aunt May and Tony burst out laughing like the very helpful adults they are. Ned looks up at them. 

“What happened? What did I miss?” 

“Nothing, Ned.” They laugh louder. Peter glares at them. 

“It doesn’t look like nothing.” Ned glances down at himself, shifting in his seat. He seems self-conscious and uncomfortable. 

“You know how old people are, laughing at stupid, dad jokes.” 

“Who are you calling old, young man?” Aunt Mays says, unimpressed. 

Before Tony can give a piece of his mind about anything ‘old’ Ned frowns at Peter. 

“That’s not how you talk about them, Pete.” Ned says in a lower voice but they hear it all the same. 

“I am sure Peter didn’t mean that.” Aunt May says as she puts her own glass down. 

“I like your friend, _Pete_ ,” Tony can’t resist teasing. Aunt May excuses herself for the washroom, trying to hide her laugh and Peter looks at Tony with utter perplexity. Ned looks between them suspiciously. 

“Okay, that’s it.” Michelle stands up. Tony had forgotten her. She is so quiet. “You idiot, get up.” She pulls Ned up by his collar. “Thank you, Mr Stark,” she says with fake sincerity. “We will meet next week, Parker.” She physically drags away the protesting but very confounded boy. 

As they leave the building, Peter stands up. “Why would you do that?” Peter may be looking a little angry. Oh boy. 

“Because you are hilarious!” Tony giggles. Peter’s anger dials down a little. He looks fonder. 

“He may misunderstand that I like him or somethin’.” Peter hisses. 

“Don’t you?” 

“What? No, Mr Stark!” Peter sits down, his skin returning to its original complexion. “He is my best friend.” 

“So what?” Tony presses. 

“Because - because loving friends means complications! I don’t want to hurt either of us,” he says somberly. “Friends aren’t meant to-,” he falters. “Not a good idea.” 

“How do you know if you haven’t tried?” 

“’Cause I do.” 

Tony knows what Peter is talking about. He knows Peter knows. Peter knows Tony used to love Steve. (Tony reminds himself he loved Captain America. Tony still doesn’t know what the real man behind the shield and patriotic mask is like.) When Tony had come back, the Infinity War and the waking realisation that he had lost Pepper too, he had stumbled into his penthouse and had remained on the floor there, pissed drunk till Rhodey had called for intervention and had called Pepper. She had come down angry, shouting and scolding Tony for succumbing to his old habits but forgiving, _forgiving_ in every word of it. She had forgiven Tony for leaving her at the altar. She had never been angry with him for ditching her to save the world. She was proud of him, she had said. She had remained close, within his arms reach but never hugging him. They had shouted at each other on top of their voices that night but Pepper had stayed by him longer. She had tried explaining to him that mixing business and pleasure wasn’t a good idea. She loves Tony just like he loves her but they didn’t love each other like that (whatever that had meant; Tony knew no other way of loving); they were just each other’s safe options and she loves and cares for him enough to know that Stark Industries is everything to him so she would stick by him, run his company for him but not be asked anything else from her. She is okay if the world thought she is a gold digger and called her names for still working for him even when he had left her like that in front of everyone just as long as Tony took care of himself. She left Tony alone in the penthouse he doesn’t remember when but he does remember sitting against the couch in the living room, a very hesitant and worried Peter Parker sitting down next to him several hours later, trying not so subtly shift the whisky bottle as far away from him as possible. Tony had narrated to the young boy every unnecessary detail of his life, starting from Jarvis to his feelings for Cap and his grief over Vision’s death. 

“What do you do when you have no one left?” Tony had asked rhetorically. “Isn’t it lonely?” 

“It is, Mr Stark,” Peter had sounded scared and pained. Tony had wanted Peter to be safe. 

“You - you died.” 

“I am sorry, Mr Stark.” 

“Six months - six months you were gone. Because of me.” 

“No, it wasn’t-” 

“Maybe if I hadn’t- if I had just agreed with … whatever Cap had wanted, maybe we could have together won then. Not lose anyone. Maybe. Maybe you wouldn’t have been gone.” 

“I am so sorry, Mr Stark.” Peter had hugged him. “I am here now. I won’t leave you anymore.” Little Peter Parker trying to console Tony Stark. Maybe the kind of love Tony needed was familial love, he had thought. Maybe he needed a family, the one he had never really had. 

Tony looks at the Peter sitting in front of him now and wonders if he remembers their conversation. 

“Mr Stark-” Peter is cut off as Tony’s phone starts ringing. It is a private number. He thumbs the green option. 

“Stark speaking.” There is no dial, the number is ticking away but there is no one speaking. Tony can hear people conversing in some language he definitely doesn’t recognise but no one is talking. “Hello?” The call disconnects. Is it a prank call? Is someone in distress. “Fry, trace the call.” 

“The call originated from Chad.” 

“Chad?” Okay. Tony doesn’t know who from Chad would call him. Is it another Ivankov? 

Tony gazes up back at Peter and then May who is slipping back into her seat and Tony wonders how long before the relative peace blows up on his face again. Either because of him or of his legacy and how many he’ll be taking down because of it. Tony asks Aunt May if she would like to come back with them to the Avengers Compound, they have a lot of room to spare. Nothing to worry about there. (Tony knows everyone’s schedule and may come off as disturbing and stalking but he just needs it to retain some sanity.) Peter corners him a few minutes later asking what are his plans with his aunt and Tony laughs, trying to explain that Aunt May is family as she is Peter’s family. Besides they are friends now. (A shocker to Peter each time he sees them having fun and laughing together something he could have never imagined before; neither could Tony frankly but his adult life has been about being mother-henned by strong, loyal, protective women. Tony is glad he has them.) 

“How could you even think that, Peter?” He says with fake annoyance. 

“Well, I don’t know. You keep calling her hot!” 

“Because she _is_ that doesn’t mean anything. She is hot just the way you are short.” 

“Hey!” Peter flicks a popcorn kernel from the tub he is holding at Tony. “Take that back. Also, you’re not much taller.” 

“Really now?” Tony grabs him in a headlock and tickles him which elicits a squeak from the little spider and all the tub turns over and its entire content is on the floor. Ten minutes later they find themselves on cleaning duty, Peter only eating away everything he picks. Tony facepalms but doesn’t comment. He knows Peter needs the food. He quickly orders two large sized pizza that’ll arrive at the compound by the time they reach. 

Once they have settled back onto the couch, waiting for Aunt May to join them after packing her bag (she had two days off so she agreed to stay with them), Peter says with practised nonchalance, 

“So, you and Aunt May are like me and Ned.” Tony looks up from his phone slowly, raising an eyebrow. Peter flushes. “You know, like friends.” 

“You two are best friends.” 

“That we are.” 

“Okay?” Tony is unsure where this is going. He thought he made it clear that he isn’t interested in Aunt May. Not that way. 

“Okay,” Peter says simply and snuggles on Tony's arm like the sticky spider he is. He doesn’t explain. “Was there a point to it?” He had decided to not tease Peter anymore about the Wade boy. He had just been messing around. 

“Nah,” Peter says quickly and Tony _lets_ it be but he knows this topic will come back up sooner or later. 

_***_

_Tony is running through halls after halls, corridors after corridors, each one of them scarier than before He is chasing something. Or, maybe he is being chased. He sees blood everywhere. So much blood, blood, blood._

Then he is sitting up, sweating like a pig, his nightmare gone abruptly. He looks around for what woke him up. 

“Fry?” His breath is shaky. 

“Boss-” 

Then, the hair on his neck is standing up, goosebumps breaking all over his skin and the room goes a little colder. 

“Friday, what’s happening-” 

The air around him sizzles and _cracks_ and a very corporeal form of Stephen Strange appears, his head floating in the air and he looks a real Ghost of the Christmas Past. 

“Stark!” He shouts. 

Tony shouts too then shoots at the ghost. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to end it like that but I thought posting the chapter would be better than not updating for another few days.


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Development, development.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry to all the medicine students. Correct my mistakes if you find them!
> 
>  
> 
> [I wanted to post it yesterday. Belated happy birthday, Tony Stark!]

Tony throws the blanket off him and jumps out of the bed, his hand raised at chest level, ready to blast away goddamn-

“Friday,” he barks, “what the fuck was that?!”

“Boss, the thermal readings show only a point one dip from the usual.”

“Nothing else?” Tony asks confused. He is sure he registered it was Strange and not a figment of his imagination only a split second before he shot. He is pulling on his jeans discarded by the foot of his bed. His voice had sounded very real (and his head floating in the air looking like a beheaded ghost; Tony isn’t thinking of that part.)

“Boss,” his AI pauses before she says in her what is her hasty version, “Doctor Strange is at the West end of the compound.” She sounds distressed. Tony is already hurrying out of his room. “His vitals are critical. He has suffered-,” Tony changes his track, skidding on the carpet and runs faster towards the nearest window, “major blood loss. There is a possible left ventricular dysfunction and is having a heart failure as we speak.”

“Tony-”

Tony doesn’t hear whatever Steve is saying because he is jumping out of the window that slid open (thanks, Fry!), falls only a couple of feet down before the armour envelops him and he is shooting up towards the garden. He locates Strange within seconds and barely stops himself from crashing into him. Strange is lying face down on the ground. There is vomit around him. Tony pulls the trembling body up.

“St-Stark-”

Strange clamps his mouth shut immediately in apparent regret, his hand grabbing Tony’s in a vice-like grip. Tony takes two more seconds to notice the blood-soaked blood tunic before he is picking up the body and takes off for the Compound’s Infirmary. Strange is laid down on a stretcher as soon as he reaches and is quickly taken to the OT. The armour dissipates and Tony lands on his bare feet on the cold marble floor. The tunic had burned away in places, leaving dark, vicious welts behind on the pale skin- just like the ones Tony had healed before. He settles down in the nearest chair and tilts his head back, slightly hitting the wall in the process. Tony had finally gotten over his nightmares of cardiac arrests, heart failures and heart attacks and now he has a fresh one. His palms are stained with blood because he had retracted the armour to touch the doctor and he is left to wonder in the empty but bright corridor what the doctor battles with that even a powerful magician like himself who braves with Thanos without breaking into a sweat or a single cut on his skin has suffered so much injuries. Tony knows from experience that the cuts that run the deepest which bleeds the longest are usually from people once trusted. Tony hopes it is not true for Strange too. He sits with his fingers clasped on his lap and shuts his eyes.

 

At some point, he is handed a glass full of water by a nurse and at some other point, Steve sits down next to him. He isn’t asked any question and Tony doesn’t try to fill the silence. By the time dawn breaks in, Tony gets up and leaves. He instructs FRIDAY to alert him when Strange is out of the OT and fill him in on the good doctor’s health status. Tony can’t wait. He can’t wait. Tony doesn’t stop to listen what Steve may have to say. He walks listlessly through the endless corridors of the compound, his fingers on the walls leaving blood trail on them. He reaches the lobby at the entrance and Tony looks around. Do all these people (not that there are many people at this hour), do any of these people have nightmares of letting people down and letting them die? Have nightmares of people dying in their arms? Do they have nightmares of losing loved ones?

Tony snorts. Half the universe had lost their half. Half of that world which had survived lives with that horror seared into their minds and in that, they are all comrades. The attendee at the help desk turns around as Tony’s glance sweeps the vast hall and notices. She mouths a ‘morning, Mr Stark’ and Tony can barely manage a stiff nod before he hastens towards the nearest elevator. She had been one of the surviving employees at the Avengers Compound. She had doubled as Pepper’s PA and the PR Head. She demoted herself later to lesser hectic and anxiety-inducing work and Tony understands. On most days, Tony wants to leave too. Leave everything behind and be left alone.

 

It is his curse that he can’t.

 

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

 

 

Tony visits the man once he wakes up in the evening and has showered. Strange is asleep by the time he manages to reach the infirmary wing (after dodging Peter and his Aunt May’s endless questions). Stephen doesn’t stir even for once through the night. Tony knows because he is perched on the single seater next to the bed (that someone brings for him), scrolling through his emails, replying to as many emails which need his immediate attention as he can. Peter calls him twice and texts him several times. Tony sends a **leave some PBJ for me** because Peter’s cooking skills are just as limited as Aunt May’s and Tony doesn’t need a burned down kitchen right in the morning. They could always order a takeout but it isn’t a healthy practice as they all had come to a conclusion (It had mostly been Nebula glaring down her nose at Peter and Tony and the men of the household had just hastily agreed.) He locks the screen after that and puts his phone back into his pocket. He shifts the seat a little and sits back, placing his legs on the table. Tony dozes off several hours later, his head lolling on the backrest of the chair. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, Strange is still in the same position. The other man sleeps dead to the world. Tony approaches the bed, checks the monitors for their readings, sighs and exits from the ward.

 

Stephen Strange had been dead longer than the rest of the world. Why? What were the million futures he had seen? There are also a million questions in Tony’s head and Strange doesn’t deign to answer a single one of them. Strange gets mysterious by the day. It is now like an itch Tony needs to scratch- maybe not the best analogy but the point is a valid point and Tony needs to get to the bottom of it. They both can be stubborn about it however, Tony can be subtler than Strange in these regards and he is going to find out the answers to _all_ his question.

 

 

 

***

 

 

Of course, their decision to not frequently consume takeouts leads to Tony dragging the Parkers and Rhodey (who had stopped by the kitchen just when Peter had managed to burn the toaster) for breakfast to the nearest cafe. Peter’s voice of protest keeps getting higher by the second and Rhodey is shameless. He takes no pity on the flustered kid. May keeps laughing good-naturedly at the ribbing. Tony notices Strange through the glass doors of the elevator. As soon as the door opens, he jogs through the now crowded lobby of the Avengers Compound.

“Heya Doc, where you running off to?”

Strange is still in the hospital gown he had been dressed into post the surgery and is being chased by harried nurses. Strange tries to walk past him but he is a recovering patient and is slow so Tony easily grabs his hand and pulls him to a stop.

“I am fine,” Strange says exasperatedly but is definitely out of breath. The nurses tending to him say otherwise. Tony checks from head to toe. Strange is his usual pale and with a scowling face. The corner of his lips and his jaw on the right has a nasty shade of purple where they bruised. There is blood on his gown. The stitches must have torn. Strange is trying to pull his hand free and Tony rolls his eyes. Strange says he is fine. Doctors truly are the worst patient. The ex-doctor tries to glare at him but to no effect.

“He is coming with us for breakfast,” Tony tells the nurses loitering behind them and tacks before anyone of them complains, “I’ll drop him back after that.”

“I am not going anywhere with you.”

“You are. The responsibility of the saviour and blah blah blah.” Stephen huffs but doesn’t argue. He is slouching a little, most likely in pain but Strange is as pigheaded as him so he doesn’t ask for help. “By the way, why didn’t you go to a hospital instead?”

Strange waits till the nurses are out of earshot, “Hospitals don’t expect dead men to turn up on the doorstep.”

“Tony?” Rhodey reaches them first and looks at Strange and the arm Tony is holding questioningly, “and you are?”

“Doctor Strange,” he stands straight and says with lesser disdain than he had with Tony, “you must be Colonel Rhodes.”

“Retired Colonel but yes.”

“So much for being a dead man,” Tony mutters and they both shoot him a look.

“Shouldn’t you be resting inside, Doctor?”, Rhodey asks confused.

“I have been discharged,” Strange lies without missing a beat and Tony snickers. Rhodey gives his gown a questioning look but doesn't call out on it.

“Mr Stark! Why did you- oh! Doctor Strange! Hi!” Peter turns to his aunt and says, “Aunt May, he is the doctor who took us to space. You remember?” Then, he looks back, “what are you doing here? Are you- did you get hurt?”

“Hello, Peter,” Strange says, amused. “I am fine. Just stopped by for a check-up.”

“Since when are we open to outsiders?” Rhodey asks Tony.

“We are not.” Before Tony can narrate the correct details of the incident, Pepper marches towards them with a young man next to her. Did she get a new PA? Unless that is Pepper’s new boyfriend then Tony will be damned because he looks barely older than Peter and Peter is a kid. Pepper is Pepper though and is hardly likely to date a guy half her age. She, however, has his full attention now because Pepper doesn’t hire male PAs either. He barely registers Strange pushing his hand off him (although the sorcerer continues to stand next to him.)

“Tony!” She smiles at Rhodey, “Morning Rhodey and May. Peter.” She looks back at him. “I want you to meet Mr Keener. He presented a talk at MIT recently and yesterday at SI for the Interns working here. Mr Keener, this is-”

“Tony Stark, former CEO of Stark Industries and Genius Engineer. Yada, yada, yada. He knows who I am. If you don’t mind, we are in a hurry, Pep, so if you could just cut to the chase, Mr … ?” Pepper looks unimpressed and Strange snorts.

“Don’t you recognise me, Mr Stark?”

Huh. Oh god. Not this again.

“Nope.”

“Mr Keener-”

“I thought with our connection you would,” the young fellow is grinning and Tony just stares at him perplexed because _what_ ? What the fuck?

“Jesus Christ,” he hears Rhodey hiss followed by a string of curses just as Aunt May gives an alarmed look while Strange just watches them, his eyebrows raised. Tony doesn’t look at Peter and he knows the look on Pepper translates to ‘are you kidding me? You slept with him’ and Tony cannot recall if he had. He doesn’t think he has because he has slept only with the fairer sex in a really really long time so he would have remembered just because of that. Unless… it had been after Pepper had left him in the penthouse and had walked out of his life as his fiancee. In that short while, everything had been a blur and Tony is really beginning to doubt himself now and he doesn’t want to see Peter disgusted with him so he doesn’t look at him.

“You really don’t remember,” Keener says, crestfallen and Tony can’t help but wince at the tone of dejection.

“Okay, that’s it. Where is Happy?” Rhodey demands, angrily.

“That won’t be required,” Pepper says quickly, “Mr Keener, my PA will contact you shortly to forward you the cheque.”

“Okay. Thank you for the invite, Ms Potts. I had a great time here.” Keener shakes Pepper’s hand and is then walking away.

 

“I don’t believe you, Tony. He is barely 23,” is all Pepper tells him and she struts away from there.

 

Tony doesn’t reply to that because he doesn’t really have anything to reply to that. The kid had looked familiar but he can’t really place it and that adds more to his confusion. Pepper is more disappointed with him and he hates that. Rhodey is fuming next to him about ‘attention seekers’. Tony feels a twinge of disappointment himself. Pepper so readily thinks the worst of him (because she has seen and known him but still.) A sudden weight latches onto his side and he stumbles before he steadies both him and Strange who has finally decided to take help (he still hadn’t _asked_ )

“I thought we were heading out for breakfast,” he drawls and everybody jumps into action and hurries out of the building. They enter the very first cafe on the way. Strange slides into the booth closest to the entryway and next to the window, followed by Peter. Tony sits down next to him. Aunt May and Rhodey sit across from them. They are going through the menu, Peter voicing his choices the loudest followed quickly by asking Strange what he wanted. Strange shakes his head to everything and requests for a bottle of water. Tony notices the doctor sweating heavily but decides not to say anything just yet because he knows the sorcerer will then escape.

Tony can’t get the words out of his head.

Connected. Keener. How does he know him? Or is he really just another attention seeker like Rhodey says he is.

“Hey look! That’s the guy from before, right?” Peter says loudly and they look at where he is pointing. Yup, the Keener guy from before.

“Hey Keener,” Tony calls out.

“What are you doing, Tony?” Rhodey hisses but Tony ignores him. His friend should know by now. You don’t get answers just by wondering. Keener approaches their booth warily.

“What was that all about before?”, Tony launches as soon as he is close, “What did you mean when you said ‘our connection’? what kind are we talking about here?” Tony takes in the unruly mop of hair, a set of wide brown eyes and well- even Peter and Tony himself have similar features. What makes him familiar then? He is sure he knows Keener from somewhere. Just not the way Pepper thinks he does. To his surprise, the boy says,

“Nothing, Mr Stark, if you don’t remember it.” Keener shakes his head, a lock of hair flopping before it settles back down and Tony thinks adorable.

Huh.

“You gotta help me out here a little. I have one too many people in my life, kid if you-” this is getting nowhere. Sheesh. “Alright, what were you doing at MIT?” The rest of the people at the booth are watching them with rapt attention.

“They were holding a seminar for the freshmen year on entrepreneurial skills and I got invited. Same for the interns at SI.” He shrugs like it is a no big thing.  
“What do you do, kid?” Rhodey interjects at this point, his interest suddenly piqued and Tony is sure that isn’t another Aldrich Killian situation.

“I am mostly a farmer but I write papers too occasionally on things.” He replies vaguely.

“Like?” Peter prompts.

“A silicon compound that can be administered to increase the healing factor during the case of an emergency. Although, it hasn’t really been tested on humans and is just more theoretical at this point and is based on-”

“Who has it been tested on then?” May and Rhodey ask in unison.

Keener gets shifty at this point, clutching his Styrofoam cup hard and looks down and murmurs, “still a hypothesis.”

“Harley,” Tony blurts. Harley Keener, that’s why the surname had sounded familiar. To his shock, Keener looks up and says,

“Yes?”

The realisation hits Tony hard and he is gaping at the young boy and finally, finally taking in the obviously familiar unruly mop of hair and eyes and grin. 

“Did you finally remember, Old man?”

“Come here, oh god,” Tony wraps him in the tightest hug (because Tony takes and gives as many hugs as he can; he doesn’t want to wait and regret. Not again.)

“Hey, hey, don’t crush me,” the boy protests feebly and Tony pulls back a little to _see_ him.

“You have grown so tall,” he grouses. “You were such a pipsqueak.”

Harley snorts. “You were never tall, to begin with.” Tony whacks him but grins because holy fuck, it is Harley Keener. He is no longer the tiny boy. “Why didn’t you say directly?”

“There’s no fun in that.”

“Can someone tell us what the hell is going on?” Rhodey asks but Tony ignores him again.

Tony remembers reading Harley’s mother’s name in the obituary, listed with several others who were shot dead in a mass shootout. There had been no trace of Harley and then Vision had been born and he was in Sokovia and by the time he came back, Harley had moved out of the country.

“When did you come back to the country?”

“I still live in Canada.”

“With who?” 

“My grandmother.”

“Grandfather?”

“He was an absentee too.” Tony purses his lips. “He is dead anyway so makes no difference.” He doesn’t get how the kid is always so nonchalant about everything.

“You should have contacted.”

“Figured you had a lot on your plate what with Iron Manning and Avengering. Wouldn’t have time for a kid.” Tony winces slightly because he had regretted leaving the kid alone just because he had thought the kid would have been better off without Tony’s presence in life. Peter isn’t doing too bad. Is he? Harley could have been fine too. “Besides, good old brother Jarvis kept me company. I was fine. He is the best sibling anybody could have.”

“Jarvis?” Peter asks while Aunt May goes, “sibling?”

“Who is Brother Jarvis?” Rhodey asks suspiciously.

Harley looks at Tony confused before saying,“Tony’s AI. You know Jarv too, right? They don’t?” Harley asks Tony and his chest pangs with guilt and hurt at the mere mention of his favourite AI.

“I know who is Jarvis, alright. What did you mean by 'sibling'?” Rhodey stresses on the word ‘sibling’. “You have a brother called Jarvis?” 

“Huh? No, but Jarvis is like Mr Stark’s son, right?” Is. Harley doesn’t know what happened to JARVIS.

“How do you know Jarvis?”, Rhodey prods.

“You didn’t tell Colonel Rhodes about me, _Dad_ ?” Harley mock glares and Rhodey sprays his coffee on the table top. Tony would laugh at everyone’s gasp. “Hello, I am Harley Keener.”

“Sorry,” Tony says quietly because he left the kid alone when he had known that the kid was going through a rough patch in life just because he hadn’t wanted more guilt in life. Harley glances at him, his grin simmering down to a fond smile and he hugs Tony. This boy had saved Iron Man when he couldn’t. Tony clears his throat,

“Everyone, this is Harley. Harley, this is Rhodey, that’s Aunt May, this is Peter and that’s Doctor Strange.” Strange has his head leaning against the window pane and doesn’t respond. He looks sick. They should make this quick and take him back to the hospital.

Harley settles down next to Rhodey and grins at all of them. “Hello, Aunt May. You’re so beautiful.” May looks at him surprised and snickers. “What do you do, Peter?”

“I- I am still graduating. High School.”

“Really? Such a shame. Would have been fun had you been older.” Harley shamelessly winks at Peter who blushes furiously and ducks his head. Aunt May looks proud.

“Thank you.”

Rhodey gives Tony a baleful look. Tony shrugs. What can he do?

“Where’s Jarvis though, Mr Stark? Can I talk to him?”

Tony pales a little and looks at Rhodey before he looks back at the kid from Tennessee. “I- Jarv is” Tony falters, unsure how to phrase it. Jarvis is dead (again?) He evolved and is gone. Tony made a mistake.

“I am Boss’s new AI,” FRIDAY’s voice interjects from his multi-purpose wristwatch.

“Oh.” Harley gives Tony a quizzical look and asks her, “what’s your name?”

“Friday.”

“Okay, Friday. Great to meet you.”

“You too, Mister Keener.”

 

Aunt May then begins asking Harley several questions starting from what he does (he says, essentially a farmer and helps the local people employ, produce and sell and be self-sufficient); Rhodey asks him about his research (which isn’t a lot and much of it isn’t available on the web). Harley explains that he has no wish to capitalise his findings and money out of it and hedges on that subject. (More questions this boy has brought for Tony to solve) and the Government tried to access his research so he shut his private lab down and burned his findings. (It isn’t the whole truth. Tony will corner him later to make him spill.)

 

“Why didn’t you contact earlier?”

“Told ya. You were busy.”

“Could have guilt tripped.” Rhodey and Aunt May scowl at Tony.

“Figured would rather have you be proud.” Tony stares at the kid who says something like that so flippantly to him. Tony has spent most of his life seeking approval and trust in his own way while rejecting when he did find them. He never thought there would be someone who would want the same of him- would want his validation where it truly mattered. Is this not then genuine when Harley stayed away because he didn’t want to benefit from the Stark association? When all Tony had done was abandon him? Isn’t it why he hadn’t been able to leave Peter alone when he first found out about him because the latter reminded him of Harley so much and he tried to compensate one for the other? With Peter and Nebula, he had felt wanted, looked up to and here there is someone who had done so all along without having been present. (Even Harley’s research had been based on the Extremis technology, trying to stabilise and figure out the minimum dosage of it that could be administered in emergency situation.)

Their order is served some fifteen minutes later and only Peter has successfully finished his breakfast when Strange interrupts them, standing up looking fraught. He is sweating profusely and is also shivering.

“I need to -.”

They all sit up alarmed because Strange doesn’t finish his sentence and he is pushing past Peter. Tony stands up quickly and moves out of the way. The doctor is barely walking straight, banging into tables and booths on his way out and Tony hurries after him after throwing a quick apology over his shoulder. Peter and Harley run behind him. (Rhodey can foot this bill.) Even when ill, Strange is quick on his foot and he is turning into the nearest alley and is opening a portal. Tony hears Harley say ‘holy shit’ but he jumps into the portal right behind Strange followed by the boys. They are standing in the communal hall of the Avengers Compound. Steve is standing halfway crouched to the floor, having dropped his journal looking at them in surprise when Tony is being yanked back and they fall through another portal and it is just Strange and him this time. They crash into what turns out to be huge cupboard and it rattles. Strange slumps onto the ground, vomiting, retching and Tony hovers over him, horrified.

“Stephen! Stephen!”

“Boss, the Doctor is going into cardiogenic shock.”

“What the hell? Fry, alert the docs. Quick.”

They are still in the compounds. They are in the Drug Storage of the facility. Strange stops shaking and Tony’s jaw hits the floor as Strange floats out of his fucking collapsing body. Tony gives out a very undignified squeak and scampers back. 

“Hello, Stark. Don’t shoot me this time.”

“Holy fuck,” Tony gasps, clutching his heart, “do you want to give me a fucking heart attack?!” He shouts into the Bloody Baron version of Strange. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

“I am dying,” he says simply and floats towards one of the locked storage at the back.

“How the fuck is this happening?”

“This is only my astral projection- where the souls stagnate if you will and I will too if you don’t help me faster.” 

Tony gets to his feet and scans the lock before he types the passcode after FRIDAY decodes it. He almost rips the door out of the locker. “What am I looking at?”

“A white lyophilized powder- Stark,” his cold translucent finger brushes Tony’s hand and it is chilling. Is this how souls feel like? “this is the one.”

“Weren’t souls supposed to be bright energy orbs?”

“I am not dead yet. The dose has to be 0.9 mg/kg and is intravenous.”

“Alright.” Tony quickly locates the syringe and the needle and is interrupted by two doctors who take one look at Tony and at the body lying on the floor and take the equipment out of his hand and get to work immediately. (He would have fired them had they turned up even a minute later.) “I thought you said you were fine.”

“It was an attempt to assassinate.” Strange's "soul" replies blithely.

“How are you so calm?”

“One gets used to it.” Used to what? Dying? Getting assassinated? Wait, when was that attempt to the assassination was being made? He doesn’t get a reply. Strange is suddenly waking up, wheezing and coughing and choking as his astral projection (or whatever the hell he said it was) shimmers and fades away. Tony sinks down on his protesting knees. Strange is saying something, Tony doesn’t catch the words. He leans closer, worried,

“Doc?” Strange blinks his eyes rapidly which finally zero on Tony’s face. There is a slight frown on his face. “You’ll be fine. The doctors are here. We are going to-” Strange tries to sit up. “Here,” Tony helps him. Strange raises his hands towards him so Tony holds them confused. “I am here. You are going to be fine. You’re alright.” But apparently, his own health hadn’t been his concern. 

Strange surges up and holds Tony’s face by both his hands and kisses him with a loud smack.

Tony’s concerned rambling thoughts short circuits and his grip loosens where they had gripped Strange’s wrist. Strange is smiling. 

 

“You have such a pretty face, Ed.”

 

What.

 

The familiar glass breaking sound is followed by a portal opening right beneath the doctor and he _falls_ into it and Tony is sitting next to a pool of vomit and nothing else. His hands fall from holding nothing but air and he looks up at the giggling pair of doctors and a stunned Rhodey. Tony, perhaps, looks more shocked and surprised than they do. Tony stares at the unoccupied floor, his cheeks warming.

 

He hadn’t been called Ed in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the comics, it is Tony who formulates the silicone-based compound for emergency shots in his kit and uses on Peter. Here, it is Harley who does it :)


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little more of a history, a bit of a mystery~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! :D
> 
>  
> 
> [A lot of characters and other things are borrowed from the comics!]

Back in those days, Tony used to still go back to his one night stand’s place instead of bringing them with him to his place. Especially, if they were of the same sex. Having figured himself to be someone who swung both ways early on, Tony slept with a lot of different kinds of people. However, he didn’t advertise it. He could hazard a guess what Howard might have to say on it and he hadn’t fancied earning more bruises. He could have after their death but it hadn’t felt right. One of those few men he had slept with had been Stephen Strange. Tony had been in England visiting Aunt Peggy’s family with her. Rhodey had not been able to go along with them as they had initially planned. Sometimes, Tony would leave Aunt Peggy with her relatives and go out, wandering in the late nights of London. Back then people didn’t recognise Tony Stark instantly and certainly, not outside of US. He had been drinking in a pub, minding his own business when a pretty girl in a red dress had sashayed up to the counter where he had been sitting and had ordered for her drinks. That shade of the red had been alluring enough and he had started chatting her up and the girl had been game for it; laughing at the right jokes, showing the right amount of teeth and baring her neck occasionally. Then, someone put a hand around her waist and her laughs had sobered up and she excused herself and disappeared into the crowd. That someone turned out to be a handsome tall man who also had been American and Tony had cheered to that. The said man hadn’t been upset at all that Tony had been hitting on his girl. Tony took a whole hour to place who the other man had been. By then the good doctor had been very drunk and Tony learned that a drunk Stephen Strange is very handsy and horny. In that one hour, Stephen had only, backhandedly, complimented Tony instead of his girlfriend. Tony had called his partner’s red dress pretty. Stephen had called Tony pretty.

 

The young Stephen Strange back from his school days had been so quiet and distant and totally not available as a friend; always reading at a corner of the library and yet always let Tony hide away in that corner when the latter was trying to hide away from his friends, his father’s bruises, his panic. On those days, Stephen had let Tony sit at the corner of the table in the dark corner of the hall and Stephen’s attitude made sure they remained unapproachable in those moments. Stephen had been a tiny, obnoxious, chubby boy who had grown up to be so tall and charming (obnoxious still in every measure.) That night after the pub, Tony had helped Stephen reach his apartment and the doctor had invited him in it. They had had sex, alright but at some point in the night, Stephen had called Tony Anthony and Tony had freaked out. As soon as it was dawn, Tony had been scrambling out of the flat. Two days later, they met again at the same pub. This time Tony made it clear beforehand, he didn’t want to be called Anthony. Stephen refused to call him Tony so they settled for Edward (begrudgingly.) The next morning when Tony had woken up sore but sated, it had been a nice feeling he had reckoned. Two months later when he returned to London for Stark Industries work with Obadiah, he had hung out at the same pub. Stephen had been surprised to see him but had gladly taken Tony with him back to his place. The fourth time this happened, Tony had kept waiting for the other and had been falling asleep on his feet, tired from jet lag and general lack of sleep. Still, Stephen had shown up at some early morning hour and had half carried Tony back to his place. Stephen himself had been dead tired from work. They had not had sex that night. They had just sat side by side, watching the television and some light meal that the doctor had good sense of making. Tony had slept with his head on Stephen’s shoulder and Stephen had slipped ‘Ed’ at some point. It had felt very warm and affectionate.

 

It had been the second time Tony had freaked out. As soon as he woke up, he had been panicking. Sleeping with Strange had occurred one too many times and he had been getting way too comfortable than he should have. So, he had left hurrying in the morning. Howard wouldn’t find out because he was dead but he couldn’t help feel that way- that someone or something would find out that Tony was feeling a certain way with someone who made him feel nice and those people take it away. Maybe Obadiah would have. Maybe Rhodey or Aunt Peggy would have warned him to stay away from the doctor. He would have been forbidden to meet him. Later that night, Tony made sure to be visible at a nightclub where he would be recognised and was reported to be seen taking a Hollywood actress back to his hotel. He didn’t meet Stephen in their old pub six weeks later when he had been back to collect some award. He had on a whim searched for Dr Stephen Strange’s whereabouts and had found the doctor to have returned to States after having completed his medical internship and was back at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

 

 

With that Stephen Strange’s chapter had closed in his life. Although they ran in similar social circles because of their social and economic background, they seldom met due to Tony being holed up in his workshop, making new inventions every now and then and Stephen being a busy surgeon and when they did, Stephen barely seemed to know him as anything beyond Tony Stark.

 

 

 

 

As the years passed and Tony turned older, another Steven had occupied his mind and heart.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

“By the shades of Seraphim!” Adria’s spell rebounds. She dodges it. “By the chains of Krakken!” The spell hits Dominicus right in the chest and the chains like a creeper bind around Mordo’s aides. Adria falls as only her legs are bound and she hits the ground hard. Stephen approaches them. “It doesn’t have to go this way.”

“You betrayed our Master. He trusted you.” Adria hisses.

“And I had trusted him.” He replies his voice heavy with sadness and regret.

“Finish whatever you plan on doing.” Dominicus says, his head lowered.

“Is that all you want?”

“We want your death.” Adria snarls, trying to hit him with another spell but Stephen flicks it away and sighs.

“So be it.”

The mists of Morpheus surround them. Stephen pulls his hands away from each other and makes a knot in the air and rips it apart. The spell leaves only a spark or two behind but he knows he is leaving behind two gifted students who will back to the oblivious human world when they wake up, their memories wiped. As much as he feels bad for them, their attempt of assassinating the Sorcerer Supreme was getting tiring and to some extent loathsome because they were Mordo’s disciple- the man who had helped Stephen find a footing in this world. A portal opens behind him. He doesn’t need to turn to know it is Wong.

“Such carelessness,” his mentor-friend chides.

“I can hear you.”

There is a pause of silence then Wong says, “You haven’t been the same ever since. Have you?”

“If the Vishantis so will, can I?”, Stephen smiles self-deprecatingly. Wong looks _sad_ . “I’ll be fine.”

“I am sorry. I told you I will take care of the Mordo matter and here we are still,” He points at the third degree burns on Stephen’s skin.

“It is alright. You almost took him down in Chad. Together, we can stop him before he makes further mistakes.”

“I have a hunch you might not need my help, Sorcerer Supreme.” Wong isn’t jesting.

 

 

“I am afraid that you may be correct.”

 

 

 

Stephen takes in his shaking hands and teleports.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter, Tony finds out where Stephen keeps getting all those burn marks from.


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was sitting as a draft since last year. 
> 
> [as bgm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZfAjMcNGIM/) :)

Strange watches as the fire consumes the building, raging up; smoke rising up and ash flying around. It is no different to dust as on ash too he can choke. But, he doesn’t need ash for that. He balled his hands into fists and inhaled deeply.

 

Could this be his last moments? Will this time finally be able to manage it?

 

The building bursts and collapses onto itself. Strange watches with stillness from the terrace next to where it had been. Even in the destruction, there is serenity.

Is this his fate?

Eternal damnation. No death. Living among the dead and the dying. Even if he has died a million times before, he still hopes for death. 

Stephen Strange, Supreme Sorcerer jumps off the edge of the terrace, wielding Tao Mandalas, hoping, _praying_ that his friend will put an end to this. 

 

*

 

“Didn’t know you and the Wizard are on such terms.”

Tony jumps back and falls on his ass. “Me neither.” He looks up at Rhodey, his cheeks having twin red spots.

“What was the Edward for? Never thought would ever hear anyone call you that.” Rhodey gives him a hand and hauls him to his feet. “So? What happened there?”

“Someone poisoned his food.” And then he floated around.

“I don’t think he even touched his order.”

They walk out of the storeroom and pass through the wards. Tony notices the nurses giggling, looking at him and he tries not to huff. He had been looking for Strange for so long; waiting for his answers and Strange had kissed him and now it is messing with him because why else he, Tony Stark, so flustered by a kiss?

Only because it had been unexpected.  
Surprising.

Nothing else.

Strange had either died on him or has been dying on him. Since the time on Titan.

“Rhodey,” he turns to his friend, his smile dropping from his friend, “Strange is in danger. He needs help.”

 

A few minutes later, May, Peter, Keener join them at the Infirmary entrance. Tony tells them what happened. He skips the kiss. That could have been out of a momentary shock. Adrenaline. Coming back to life. Tony had been the first person he had seen. Surely, just because of that. Peter gives him an inquisitive look but doesn’t prod. Tony walks straight towards his workshop from there, his hands deep in his pocket.

 

The strange burn marks, the gashes on Strange were of a particular kind. He can go out on a limb and say they have the same pattern and are from the same source. Something or someone is out there hunting Dr Strange and Tony fears for him. The wizard was so powerful in front of Thanos, unscratched and yet now…

It has him worried.

He doesn’t wait till he is in the confines of his workshop. He takes his phone out of his pocket and calls Wong. It is directed to voicemail.

“Wong. Leave a message.”

Tony ends the call. Instead of taking the elevator, he turns towards the wall with the window and peers outside. All that loneliness and blackness in space, he is still here, shutting himself inside this glass prison, away and far from people. He gazes at the phone once before deciding against calling again. Strange can look after himself. He doesn’t need Tony’s help. He never asked for it. He is better off without Tony’s interference. He pockets his phone. Maybe it is time to let go of Stephen Strange thoughts and to move on like everyone has.

Maybe, he’ll start with going out of the Avengers compound more. Not just for work.

By the time, he calls May to ask about Keener, the boy has already left. Tony sighs. He needs to spend some time with that boy, get to know him. In all of this, one good thing had happened.

 

*

 

That weekend, to honour his Getting Outside the Compound plans, he begins it with heading towards Queens to meet Peter. He gives Steve a lift till there who says he’ll take the subway from there. The car ride is one hell of a stretched moment of awkwardness. He is surprised the steering wheel hadn’t come unhinged or broken in his hands. Steve Rogers doesn’t even look him in the eyes now. After Steve disappears from his sight in the crowd, he parks his car in the nearest parking space and grabs the presents before he heads towards the building the Parkers live in. The guard at the entrance greets him and Tony wishes him along with a smile as he takes his Aviators off. He takes the stairway instead of the elevator. It is not too many steps. He is panting by the time he reaches Peter’s floor. He rings the bell and the door suddenly opens. It startles him.

And even May who didn’t expect him.

“Oh, Mr Sta- Tony. Come inside.” May smiles at him and steps aside to let him in.

“Who were you expecting?” Tony hands her the “presents”. Some protein supplements for Spidey boy and sandwiches from the nearest Deli. 

“Thank you,” She walks in front of him. “Going out on a date.” She places them on the nearest table. “How do I look?”

“Hot. As always.” He smirks and she rolls her eyes.

“Thanks as always.”

“Who is it, Aunt May?” Peter’s head pokes out of the kitchen. “Eddie is here?”

“No. It is Tony.”

“Hey, Petey,”

They say at the same time.

Peter looks at Tony surprised, his voice a bit squeaky, “Hi there, Mr Stark.”

“Did you do something?”

May who had been collecting her purse from the couch, looks first at Tony, then at Peter. “Did you do something?”

“What? No! Why would you think that?”

Tony is grinning and he walks closer to the young boy. “Well, you have your Guilty Voice one. So, I am guessing you-” He has walked around the table and in his direct line of vision are May Parker, Peter Parker and Stephen Strange. He stops grinning. “What is he doing here?” He asks Peter.

“He has been helping out Peter with Biology and Chemistry.” May answers instead. “Ooh, got a text from Eddie. He’s waiting downstairs.”

“Have an awesome date, Aunt May.” Peter says, smiling and hugs her. 

“Thanks, love.” She pecks him on the forehead.

“Who is Eddie?” Tony asks, tearing his eyes away Strange who is watching him with a stillness only, perhaps, which he could muster.

“My date, Stark.”

“In the morning?”

“Date’s a date.” She laughs, touches him on the arm and then walks out of the flat.

“Take care.” He tells her.

“Eddie is nice, Mr Stark. He’s a reporter from San Francisco. Aunt May will be fine.” He says softly.

“Yup. She can.” He looks back into the kitchen, expecting the former doctor to have left but he is still there. Standing. Watching.

“Can I- do you want something?” Peter asks. “Water, maybe?”

“It is alright, Peter.”

“I’ll get- get you water.” Peter turns around and goes to kitchen. Tony follows him. He doesn’t enter the kitchen. He stands at the threshold and stares back at Strange, not ready to lose the staring match. Peter is opening and shutting the cabinets.

“Peter, I brought sandwiches. It’s in the other room.”

“Okay!” Peter is out of the kitchen in a jiffy.

The silence is jarring.

Tony tries the good old fashion. “Are we gonna talk about the kiss?” Dammit. Not good enough. 

It doesn’t matter though. There’s no reply. No twitch of muscles. No response.

“Since when did you decide to tutor the kid? Not that you can’t. You are just not the most talkative. Do you teach him telepathically? How does this work? You could tutor me s-”

“Have you thought maybe it is just you?” His gaze is levelled and possibly, condescending.

How does Stephen sound like Steven? He flinches.

“I was told I shouldn’t be assuming.”

Tony takes a step towards him. Strange takes a step back. He collides into the side of the chair he had been sitting on. It titters. A hole rips through space and the magician steps back through it. The portal closes. The chair clatters on the floor.

“What happened?” Peter shouts loudly.

Tony walks out of the kitchen. 

“Where’s Doctor Strange?” He peers into the kitchen. “He left?”

Tony takes a sandwich from his hand. “He’ll be back once I am gone.”  
“Mr. Stark! It is not- Mr. Stark-”

Tony slams the door behind him and takes the elevator.

Strange had fresh burn marks around his neck and deep gashes on his cheeks and the back of his palms just like before.

 

So much for moving on. 

 

*

 

Tony takes his car and heads straight to the airport. He informs Pepper on the way and on his private charter, he leaves for Prince Edward Island. Pepper doesn’t ask why he wants to go to Canada and in moments like this he remembers how much he has lost her.

 

*

 

Tony decides to be nice and rings the doorbell to a house in the middle of a huge farmhouse in nowhere but hey, Harley, as long as he wasn’t doing anything criminal, he was good. The vast “farm” gives him the heebie-jeebies. On the second ring, a very shocked Harley Keener opens the door, wearing nothing but a pair of cotton sweatpants.

“You aren’t doing anything nefarious, are you?” Tony says as Harley steps aside to let him in. The younger man snorts.

“Like I don’t have a million job already on my plate.” He shuts the door behind him. Tony brushes his palms together and activates FRIDAY’s reconnoitre protocol. She’ll scan the place as Tony will reacquaint himself with Keener. Nothing wrong with a little safety precaution.

“What can I say, I have been constantly surprised.”

Harley picks a discarded t-shirt from a nearby couch, puts it on and then says, “Never called ya. _You_ surprised me.”

“Touche.” Tony looks around. He isn’t sure what he was expecting the house to look like.

“Anyway, what’s with the surprise visit? Got enemies chasing you?” Does he think Tony would endanger him for his own safety? Harley’s back facing towards him as he walks towards a kitchen. Too small. Kitchenette. “Want some coffee?”

“Yes and I-” He wants to clear the misunderstanding. “I just came for a visit. To see how you are doing. When a young man comes waltzing to your door, calling you their old man you gotta check up on them.”

“Rubbish.” Harley pours coffee from a flask into a cup. 

“Excuse me?”

“If you are telling me that you weren’t aware of all the money I was getting for my education funds then your name isn’t Tony Stark ‘cuz your Assistant doesn’t even know I exist.” Harley looks up at him. “Does he?” He asks, eyes wide and sure as he hands Tony the cup.

“Nope.”

“You really couldn’t recognise me though or you were just taking the piss outta me?”

Tony laughs. “I never checked on your photos.”

“Alright, alright.” He leans against the counter. “You really just here for a visit then?” There’s nothing closed off about him that could tell Tony that he was trying to hide anything. Tony’s ‘watch’ beeps just then and peers at the screen. Initial scan is done. FRIDAY didn’t pick up on anything shady on its area mapping nanobot. Tony releases a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding.

“Yes,” Tony says, smiling guiltily, “no enemies chasing either.”

“It’s cool. You’re most welcome here. Do you plan on staying for the night? Because then we would have to make arrangements from beforehand…” He trails off.

“This place is spooky and deserted. How do you live here?”

“That’s because you’re city-bred. Plus, you live in the eyes of media. Everyone in these parts live like this.”

“What, like in vast grounds and a shack in the middle of nowhere?”

“It’s not nowhere and I like this here.” He says hotly. “Before we discuss any further my accommodation choices, I need to prepare for myself some meal. Do you want some real, homegrown food, Mr Stark?”

Something buzzes in his pocket. “You’re getting a call from Dr. Banner, Boss.”

“Cut off all connections unless it is really an emergency.”

“Who you talking to? Your new AI pal?”

“Something like that. Now whip me some of your best dishes, Chef”

“Aye, aye. Your wish is my command.” Harley mock-salutes him and settles himself in the kitchenette with pots loudly banging and hitting the counter. There is something eerie about the place, about the location. Tony can’t put a finger on it.

 

*

 

The hours pass by quickly. Harley shows him around the huge farm. There’s a meadow, a short stream flowing through its corner and he worries for Harley’s security. He says as much but the boy shoots it down and refuses to agree to any security protocols Tony wants to install. He also introduces Tony to some of the helpers on the farm. Some of them had sounded more American than Canadian. A lot of people after the Restoration had migrated to escape from the memories of desolation. Tony, out of courtesy, had refrained from asking them any questions. Harley, in passing, mentions how some of them had sought refuge in his farm and he hadn’t turned them away. Out of the lot, the scarred-faced man is the oddest. He smirks at Tony each time they pass by, sometimes even making rude gestures with his hands and tongue. He introduces himself as Wade. Harley tells Tony that it is Wade’s defensive mechanism to get people to stop staring at his blistered skin. While he happily shares anecdotes from his farm life, Keener isn’t that much forthcoming with his research life. He is dodgy as hell and point-blank refuses to show or share any details of his work on Extremis with Tony (who later checks for the files on all the databases known to mankind but they are either Redacted or simply corrupted.) It will take Tony only a bit of tweaking to get to the actual files but Harley’s earnest face makes him hesitate. For now. It hasn’t gone unnoticed to him that there are acres of the farmland that Harley didn’t mention about; that there are abandoned buildings on the ground which can double time as research lab if Harley had so wanted. Why shut down his lab? Why burn his research? Even after forty-eight hours passing, Tony doesn’t have answers to the questions. He finds the files but they only contain the general understanding and experiments with regards to Extremis- nothing which would require a Government inquiry or a Lab shutdown.

As he finds himself sitting on a small but comfortable couch in a tiny but lived-in house, Tony finds on his hand another puzzle. They had eaten half of a loaf of bread, bacon, some local jam and butter, and mashed potatoes. It had been a simple dinner and yet wholesomely, satisfying. They watch the rerun of some series Harley loves and won’t stop passing comments on.

 

This life away from the city makes him relaxed so much so that it lulls him into sleep. It also makes him itch to grab a pen and write down his thoughts. Countryside life is indeed romantic, peaceful and the perfect getaway. It almost makes him forget his actual life. Or, maybe, makes him wish he had known any other life otherwise.

However, when Tony is dozing off on the couch, his head lolling on the backrest of the couch, a shrill, window shattering noise wakes him up. He wakes up with a start. The TV’s volume has been turned down to a minimum and there’s no Harley in sight.  
He sits up, frowning as he feels the swooshing noise of blowing wind. As the association of the sound clicks in his mind, he gets up from the couch, the nanobots slowly spreading across his skin under his clothes. He approaches the source of the sound towards the narrow hallway. The door he spies is bolted shut. No, the wind like a typhoon wreaked in the middle of the room is from the portal that has been opened a few feet away from the door. FRIDAY scans body heat and Tony notices to his horror, Wang lying on the floor, half in and out of the shimmering portal. He quickly grabs the wizard and drags him out safely from it.

“Wong? Wong!” His clothes are burned and singed in various places, torn in some. His forehead is bloodied and so are his hands. “Hey! Fry?”

“He is rapidly sinking into unconsciousness. He has received several second-degree burns, three fractures, multiple contusions to the-”

“Stark-” Wong gasps, coughing as he tries to sit up. 

“Hey, I-”

“Sa- save Stephen. Hiz goin’ t’ ki’ ‘im.” Wong coughs some blood. “Save tha’ idio…” He trails off.

“Alert Harley and the nearby medical service.”

“On it.”

Tony gives one glance at the unconscious form of Wong, turns him around to his side to avoid death from any accidental asphyxiation. He gets up from the floor and jumps through the portal in the nick of time as it shuts behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will ignore exactly how they managed to defeat Thanos. It will be centred more around the after-effects of the war and such.


End file.
